Craft and related trades workers · code 7534

Upholsterers and related workers

Upholsterers and related workers install, repair and replace upholstery of furniture, fixtures, orthopaedic appliances, seats, panels, convertible and vinyl tops and other furnishings of automobiles, railway coaches, aircraft, ships and similar items with fabric, leather, rexine or other upholstery material. They also make and repair cushions, quilts and mattresses. Tasks include - (a) discussing upholstery fabric, colour and style with customers and providing cost estimates for upholstering furniture or other items; (b) making upholstery patterns from sketches, customer descriptions or blueprints; (c) laying out, measuring and cutting upholstery materials following patterns, templates, sketches or design specifications; (d) installing, arranging and securing springs, padding and covering material to furniture frames; (e) sewing upholstery materials by hand to seam cushions and joining sections of covering materials; (f) sewing rips or tears in material, or creating tufting, using needle and thread; (g) tacking, gluing or sewing ornamental trims, buckles, braids, buttons and other accessories to covers or frames on upholstered items; (h) laying out, cutting, fabricating and installing upholstery in aircrafts, motor vehicles, railway cars, boats and ships; (i) repairing raw hide coverings of artificial limbs; (j) renovating antique furniture using a variety of tools including ripping chisels, magnetic hammers and long needles; (k) collaborating with interior designers to decorate rooms and coordinate furnishing fabrics; (l) making quilts, cushions and mattresses. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Furniture upholsterer - Mattress maker - Orthopaedic upholsterer - Vehicle upholsterer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Sewing machine operator - 8153

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 111 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

upholsterer
mattress maker
aircraft interior technician

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

82.3

Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 17.7 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 17.7 = 82.3

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

59.3

How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

48.7

How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 57.1 · hand skill 55.4 · cramped spaces 33.5 · 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 59.3 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 37, while the average is 17.7. 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.

37
Discussing upholstery fabric, colour and style with customers and providing cost estimate for upholstering furniture or other items

Low
34.3
Collaborating with interior designers to decorate rooms and coordinate furnishing fabrics

Low
24
Making upholstery patterns from sketches, customer descriptions or blueprints

Very Low
15
Laying out, cutting, fabricating and installing upholstery in aircrafts, motor vehicles, railway cars, boats and ships

Very Low
14.8
Tacking, gluing or sewing ornamental trims, buckles, braids, buttons and other accessories to covers or frames on upholstered items

Very Low
14.5
Making quilts, cushions and mattresses.

Very Low
14.3
Renovating antique furniture using a variety of tools including ripping chisels, magnetic hammers and long needles

Very Low
13.3
Laying out, measuring and cutting upholstery materials following patterns, templates, sketches, or design specifications

Very Low
13
Installing, arranging and securing springs, padding and covering material to furniture frames

Very Low
12.5
Sewing rips or tears in material, or creating tufting, using needle and thread

Very Low
12
Sewing upholstery materials by hand to seam cushions and joining sections of covering materials

Very Low
7.9
Repairing raw hide covering of artificial limbs

Very Low

12 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: 47
AI does it for you: 19

Helping wins by 28 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3242, 3933

Compared with similar jobs

There are 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” group, averaging 83.5. This one is below that.