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Craft and related trades workers · code 7111

House builders

AI can juggle the subcontractors' diaries. It can't build the wall.

AI barely touches six of the seven tasks, including roofing, levelling floors and getting specialist trades in. Coordinating subcontractors and workers is mostly out of its reach too.

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

House builders erect, maintain and repair houses and similar small buildings using either traditional or modern techniques and materials. Tasks include - (a) preparing ground for erecting building or other structures; (b) erecting structures to support roofs, and building and covering walls with appropriate materials; (c) fixing rafters to roofs and covering with roofing material; (d) levelling floors to make them smooth and serviceable; (e) maintaining and repairing existing structures; (f) arranging for specialized work such as bricklaying, painting, plumbing and electrical wiring to be done by subcontractors; (g) coordinating and supervising the activities of subcontractors, labourers and other workers. Examples of the occupations classified here: - House builder Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Construction project manager - 1323 - Project builder - 1323 - Construction supervisor - 3123

  • house builder

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

86 / 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

55 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 13.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 13.7 = 86.3.

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 53 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?

House builders 86

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.

  • Scheduling subcontractors and deliveries.
  • Quotes, costings and planning paperwork.
  • Tracking progress with photos and apps.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Building and repairing structures on site.
  • Sorting out problems between trades.
  • Being accountable for the finished house.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Energy efficient and modular building methods.
  • Digital plans and compliance records.
  • Retrofit work on existing homes.

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

23 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 59 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

53 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 24 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

53 How
hands-on
24 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 21.4 · hand skill 17.9 · cramped spaces 32.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 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 28, against an average of 14. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 28

    Coordinating and supervising the activities of subcontractors, labourers and other workers.

    Low
  2. 17

    Arranging for specialized work such as bricklaying, painting, plumbing and electrical wiring to be done by subcontractors

    Very Low
  3. 14

    Maintaining and repairing existing structures

    Very Low
  4. 11

    Preparing ground for erecting building or other structures

    Very Low
  5. 10

    Erecting structures to support roof, and building and covering walls with appropriate materials

    Very Low
  6. 9

    Fixing rafters to roof and covering with roofing material

    Very Low
  7. 8

    Levelling floor to make it smooth and serviceable

    Very Low

7 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
59
AI does it for you
23

Sidekick wins, by 36 points.

How good a match is this?

3 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 1331, 3312, 8214

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.01% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

50
50

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should house builders be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. The most exposed task is coordinating subcontractors, which rates Low; the building work itself rates Very Low. Scheduling and quoting tools will take on more of the admin, leaving more time on site.

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 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” family, averaging 83. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →