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Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6113

Gardeners, horticultural and nursery growers

AI can design the garden. Building it is still a spade and a wheelbarrow.

AI barely touches nine of the twelve tasks, including raising plants from seeds and cuttings and processing produce. Marketing and planning what to grow are mostly out of its reach too.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Gardeners, horticultural and nursery growers plan, organize and perform operations to cultivate and maintain trees, shrubs, flowers and other plants in parks and private gardens, and to produce saplings, bulbs and seeds or grow vegetables and flowers, by intensive cultivation techniques for sale or delivery on a regular basis to wholesale buyers, marketing organizations or at markets. Tasks include - (a) monitoring market activity and conditions determining kinds and amounts of vegetables, horticultural and nursery products to be grown, and planning and coordinating production accordingly; (b) preparing land by conditioning soil, levelling ground and installing and operating irrigation and drainage systems; (c) planting trees, hedges, garden plants and grass; (d) pruning and trimming trees, shrubs and hedges, installing plant supports and protection, and rolling, mowing, aerating and edging lawns; (e) constructing features and facilities within gardens, such as paths or paved areas, walls, rockeries, garden beds, ponds and water features, sheds and fences; (f) checking the health of plants and trees, identifying and treating weeds, pests and diseases, and applying mulch and fertilizers; (g) producing saplings, bulbs and seeds and raising plants from seeds or cuttings; (h) harvesting crops, inspecting, cleaning, grading, packaging, storing and loading products for sale or delivery to market; (i) maintaining buildings, greenhouses and other structures, equipment and water supply systems; (j) storing and carrying out some processing of produce; (k) promoting and marketing products, arranging the sale, purchase and transportation of produce and supplies, and maintaining and evaluating records of activities and transactions; (l) training and supervising workers in production, maintenance duties, and health and safety precautions, and hiring and discharging workers and contractors. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Horticulturist - Landscape gardener - Market gardener - Mushroom cultivator Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Horticultural scientist - 2132 - Garden labourer - 9214 - Horticultural labourer - 9214 Note Growers of berry-bearing bushes and fruit trees in orchards are classified in Unit Group 6112: Tree and Shrub Crop Growers unless this is done in combination with general market gardening or horticultural cultivation. Growers of vegetables in fields not using intensive cultivation techniques are classified in Unit Group 6111: Field Crop and Vegetable Growers.

  • horticulture worker
  • tree surgeon
  • landscape gardener
  • horticulture production manager
  • interior landscaper
  • groundsman/groundswoman
  • horticulture production team leader

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

82 / 100

Strongly holds up against AI

Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed

125 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 12 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 18.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 18.4 = 81.6.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 78 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Gardeners, horticultural and nursery growers 82

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Garden designs and visualisations.
  • Marketing, sales and records.
  • Watering and irrigation schedules.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Planting, pruning and tree work.
  • Building paths, walls and ponds.
  • Diagnosing plant health.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Robot mowers and smart irrigation.
  • Rewilding and biodiversity gardens.
  • Climate-resilient planting.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Low

27 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 56 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

78 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

More fine handwork, and more time in cramped or awkward spots, than a typical hands-on job. That is exactly what machines find hardest: they do best in tidy, predictable places.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 40 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

78 How
hands-on
40 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs .

finger skill 42.3 · hand skill 46.5 · cramped spaces 29.7 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 45, against an average of 18. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 45

    Promoting and marketing products, arranging the sale, purchase and transportation of produce and supplies, and maintaining and evaluating records of activities and transactions

    Low
  2. 34

    Monitoring market activity and conditions determining kinds and amounts of vegetables, horticultural and nursery products to be grown, and planning and coordinating production accordingly

    Low
  3. 29

    Training and supervising workers in production, maintenance duties, and health and safety precautions, and hiring and discharging workers and contractors.

    Low
  4. 15

    Checking the health of plants and trees, identifying and treating weeds, pests and diseases, and applying mulch and fertilizers

    Very Low
  5. 15

    Harvesting crops and inspecting, cleaning, grading, packaging, storing and loading products for sale or delivery to market

    Very Low
  6. 14

    Maintaining buildings, greenhouses and other structures, equipment and water supply systems

    Very Low
  7. 14

    Constructing features and facilities within gardens, such as paths or paved areas, walls, rockeries, garden beds, ponds and water features, sheds and fences

    Very Low
  8. 13

    Preparing land by conditioning soil, levelling ground and installing and operating irrigation and drainage systems

    Very Low
  9. 12

    Planting trees, hedges, garden plants and grass

    Very Low
  10. 12

    Pruning and trimming trees, shrubs and hedges, installing plant supports and protection, and rolling, mowing, aerating and edging lawns

    Very Low
  11. 11

    Storing and carrying out some processing of produce

    Very Low
  12. 10

    Producing saplings, bulbs and seeds and raising plants from seeds or cuttings

    Very Low

12 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
56
AI does it for you
27

Sidekick wins, by 30 points.

How good a match is this?

2 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 1216, 3623, 3624, 3625, 3626, 3627, 3631

So, should gardeners and nursery growers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

Parts of the business side are changing. Marketing, planning production and supervising are the most exposed tasks, all Low; planting, pruning and building gardens rate Very Low. Design tools and robot mowers help, but gardens are built and kept by hand.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 18 jobs in the “Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers” family, averaging 84. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →