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Craft and related trades workers · code 7121

Roofers

AI can measure your roof from a satellite photo. It can't stop the rain getting in.

AI barely touches five of the six tasks, including waterproofing, tiling and thatching roofs. Working out materials from drawings and site visits is mostly out of its reach too.

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

Roofers build and repair roofs on all types of buildings, using one or more kinds of material. Tasks include - (a) studying drawings, specifications and construction sites to determine materials required; (b) covering roof frameworks with slate and prefabricated tiles to cover pitched roofs; (c) laying a waterproof shield and fixing metallic or synthetic materials to a building’s frame; (d) sizing and cutting roofing materials to fit around edges, corners and protuberances such as chimneys; (e) using natural materials such as thatching to provide roof coverings; (f) creating temporary structures such as scaffolding and ladders. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Asphalt roofer - Metal roofer - Roof fixer - Roof tiler - Slate roofer - Thatcher Note Installers of metal roofing are classified in Unit Group 7121: Roofers. Workers who make sheet metal products for adaptation and installation by roofers are classified in Unit Group 7213: Sheet Metal Workers.

  • roofer

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

87 / 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

39 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 12.6 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 12.6 = 87.4.

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 75 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?

Roofers 87

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.

  • Measuring roofs from drone or satellite images.
  • Estimating materials from drawings.
  • Quotes, orders and scheduling.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Working safely at height in bad weather.
  • Cutting and fitting around chimneys and awkward edges.
  • Traditional work like slate and thatch.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Installing solar roofs and panels.
  • Drone inspections after storms.
  • Insulation and green roof systems.

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

14 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 52 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

75 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?

Physical work where helping and caring for people is a big part of the job. For care work, whether a machine could do the movements is only half the question. The other half is whether anyone wants one to. The US data counts helping workmates too, so a few trades end up here.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 47 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

75 How
hands-on
47 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, helping and caring for others

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 44.6 · hand skill 48.3 · cramped spaces 49 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7

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 13. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 28

    Studying drawings, specifications and construction sites to determine materials required

    Low
  2. 12

    Laying a waterproof shield and fixing metallic or synthetic materials to a building’s frame

    Very Low
  3. 11

    Sizing and cutting roofing materials to fit around edges, corners and protuberances such as chimneys

    Very Low
  4. 9

    Creating temporary structures such as scaffolding and ladders.

    Very Low
  5. 8

    Using natural materials such as thatching to provide roof coverings

    Very Low
  6. 8

    Covering roof frameworks with slate and pre-fabricated tiles to cover pitched roofs

    Very Low

6 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
52
AI does it for you
14

Sidekick wins, by 38 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 3333, 3341

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 under 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

38
62

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 roofers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. The most exposed task is studying drawings to work out materials, and even that only rates Low. Laying, cutting and fixing all rate Very Low. Drone surveys and quoting tools are changing the office side; the roof itself still needs a roofer.

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 →