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Craft and related trades workers · code 7122

Floor layers and tile setters

Floor layers and tile setters install, maintain and repair flooring, and cover floors, walls and other surfaces with carpets, tiles or mosaic panels for decorative or other purposes. Tasks include - (a) preparing floor areas for covering with a variety of materials; (b) assembling carpet, tiles or other materials and laying them on floors according to design and other specifications; (c) preparing wall areas for covering with tiles or other materials for decorative or other purposes such as acoustic insulation; (d) setting tiles and constructing and laying mosaic panels to walls, floors and other surfaces. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Carpet layer - Marble setter - Parquetry worker - Tile setter

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 13 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • carpet fitter
  • hardwood floor layer
  • tile fitter
  • resilient floor layer

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

89.8
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 10.2 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 10.2 = 89.8

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

65.5
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 4 US jobs

48.2
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 41.5 · hand skill 42.5 · cramped spaces 60.5 · 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 65.5 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 12.5, while the average is 10.2. 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. 12.5

    Assembling carpet, tiles or other materials and laying them on floors according to design and other specifications

    Very Low
  2. 9.8

    Setting tiles and constructing and laying mosaic panels to walls, floors and other surfaces.

    Very Low
  3. 9.5

    Preparing floor areas for covering with a variety of materials

    Very Low
  4. 9

    Preparing wall areas for covering with tiles or other materials for decorative or other purposes such as acoustic insulation

    Very Low

4 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
56.5
AI does it for you
17.5

Helping wins by 39 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3321, 3334

Compared with similar jobs

There are 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” group, averaging 83.4. This one is above that.