Skip to content
man bot

Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers · code 6113

Gardeners, horticultural and nursery growers

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.

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 125 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • 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.

81.6
Holds up
against AI
Not Exposed

AI could take on 18.4 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 18.4 = 81.6

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

77.5
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 3 US jobs

39.5
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 42.3 · hand skill 46.5 · cramped spaces 29.7 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on 50+ · fiddly 39.4+ Hands-on, fiddly work in tight spaces

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.

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 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

This number is probably too high

This score only looks at AI tools like chatbots. It doesn't look at robots at all — and this job rates 77.5 out of 100 for how hands-on it is, which is exactly where robots come in.

Have a look at the tasks below and judge for yourself. The ILO scored them low because a chatbot can't do them. Whether a machine with hands could is a different question, and we can't answer it yet.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 45, while the average is 18.4. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  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. 33.5

    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. 28.8

    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. 13.5

    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. 12.5

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

    Very Low
  9. 11.5

    Planting trees, hedges, garden plants and grass

    Very Low
  10. 11.5

    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. 9.8

    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 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

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

AI helps you
56
AI does it for you
26.5

Helping wins by 29.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 1216, 3623, 3624, 3625, 3626, 3627, 3631

Compared with similar jobs

There are 18 jobs in the “Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers” group, averaging 83.7. This one is below that.