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Craft and related trades workers · code 7124

Insulation workers

Insulation workers apply and repair insulating materials to buildings, boilers, pipes or refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. Tasks include - (a) cutting insulation material by size and shape; (b) applying slabs and sheets of insulating or sound-absorbing materials to walls, floors and ceilings of buildings; (c) blowing and packing insulating or sound-absorbing materials into cavities between walls, floors and ceilings of buildings with power-driven machines; (d) examining plans, specifications and work sites to determine the type, quality and quantity of insulation material required; (e) applying insulating materials to exposed surfaces of equipment such as boilers, pipes and tanks; (f) insulating refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Acoustic insulation worker - Boiler and pipe insulation worker - Insulation installer - Insulation worker - Refrigeration and air conditioning equipment insulation worker

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 43 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • insulation worker

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

87.3
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 12.7 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 12.7 = 87.3

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

69.9
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

52.6
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 42 · hand skill 43.8 · cramped spaces 72 · 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 69.9 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 15, while the average is 12.7. 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. 15

    Applying insulating materials to exposed surfaces of equipment such as boilers, pipes and tanks

    Very Low
  2. 14

    Examining plans, specifications and work sites to determine the type, quality and quantity of insulation material required

    Very Low
  3. 13.5

    Insulating refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment.

    Very Low
  4. 11.8

    Cutting insulation material by size and shape

    Very Low
  5. 11

    Applying slabs and sheets of insulating or sound-absorbing materials to walls, floors and ceilings of buildings

    Very Low
  6. 11

    Blowing and packing insulating or sound-absorbing materials into cavities between walls, floors and ceilings of buildings with power-driven machines

    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 0.7-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
43.5
AI does it for you
17.5

Helping wins by 26 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 8214, 8219

Compared with similar jobs

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