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Craft and related trades workers · code 7123

Plasterers

AI can estimate the plasterboard. Getting a wall perfectly smooth is still a skill.

AI barely touches any of the seven tasks, from hanging and finishing plasterboard to casting ornamental plaster and applying fireproofing.

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

Plasterers install, maintain and repair plasterboard in buildings, and apply decorative and protective coverings of plaster, cement and similar material to the interiors and exteriors of structures. Tasks include - (a) applying one or more coats of plaster to interior walls and ceilings of buildings to produce a finished surface; (b) measuring, marking and installing ornamental plaster panels, and casting and trimming ornamental plaster cornices; (c) measuring, marking and cutting plasterboard, lifting and positioning panels and securing them to walls, ceilings and battens; (d) covering joins and nail holes with wet plaster and sealing compounds, and smoothing them using wet brushes and sandpaper; (e) applying protective and decorative coverings of cement, plaster and similar materials to exterior building surfaces; (f) making and installing decorative plaster fixtures of fibrous plaster; (g) applying and finishing acoustic, insulating and fireproofing materials bonded with plaster, plastic cement and similar materials. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Dry wall plasterer - Fibrous plasterer - Ornamental plasterer - Plasterer - Solid plasterer - Stucco plasterer

  • plasterer
  • ceiling installer

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

89 / 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

24 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 11.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 11.4 = 88.6.

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 62 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?

Plasterers 89

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 and estimating from plans.
  • Quotes and ordering.
  • Scheduling around other trades.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • A smooth finish on real, uneven walls.
  • Repairing and matching ornamental plasterwork.
  • Working fast before the plaster sets.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Insulation and energy efficiency upgrades.
  • Spray application machines on large jobs.
  • Heritage and restoration work.

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

12 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 44 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

62 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 45 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

62 How
hands-on
45 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 42.9 · hand skill 47.6 · cramped spaces 45.8 · 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 14, against an average of 11. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 14

    Measuring, marking and installing ornamental plaster panels, and casting and trimming ornamental plaster cornices

    Very Low
  2. 13

    Applying and finishing acoustic, insulating and fireproofing materials bonded with plaster, plastic cement and similar materials.

    Very Low
  3. 12

    Making and installing decorative plaster fixtures of fibrous plaster

    Very Low
  4. 11

    Applying protective and decorative covering of cement, plaster and similar materials to exterior building surfaces

    Very Low
  5. 11

    Applying one or more coats of plaster to interior walls and ceilings of buildings to produce finished surface

    Very Low
  6. 10

    Measuring, marking and cutting plasterboard, lifting and positioning panels and securing them to walls, ceilings and battens

    Very Low
  7. 10

    Covering joins and nail holes with wet plaster and sealing compounds, and smoothing them using wet brushes and sand paper

    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
44
AI does it for you
12

Sidekick wins, by 32 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. 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 3332

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

67
33

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 plasterers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low, from fixing boards to finishing walls and ornamental work. Plaster-spraying machines help on big jobs, but finishing and repair work needs a trained 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 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 →