Craft and related trades workers · code 7534

Upholsterers and related workers

AI can show the sofa in a new fabric. Re-springing it is still an upholsterer's job.

Advising customers on fabrics and costs and working with interior designers are mostly out of AI's reach. It barely touches ten of the twelve tasks, including hand-sewing cushions and covers.

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

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

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 / 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

111 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 12 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 17.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 17.7 = 82.3.

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 59 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?

Upholsterers and related workers 82

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.

Showing customers fabrics on their furniture.
Quotes and estimates.
Patterns and cutting plans.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

Stripping, springing and padding frames.
Sewing and finishing by hand.
Restoring antique furniture.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

Reupholstering as people keep furniture longer.
Vehicle, boat and aircraft interiors.
Sustainable materials.

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

19 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 47 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

59 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

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

59 How
hands-on

49 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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 57.1 · hand skill 55.4 · cramped spaces 33.5 · 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 37, against an average of 18. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

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

Low
34
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
15
Tacking, gluing or sewing ornamental trims, buckles, braids, buttons and other accessories to covers or frames on upholstered items

Very Low
14
Making quilts, cushions and mattresses.

Very Low
14
Renovating antique furniture using a variety of tools including ripping chisels, magnetic hammers and long needles

Very Low
13
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
13
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
8
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 0.8-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: 47
AI does it for you: 19

Sidekick wins, by 28 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 3242, 3933

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

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 upholsterers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. The most exposed tasks are advising customers on fabrics with quotes, and working with interior designers, both Low; cutting, springing and sewing rate Very Low. Visualisation tools help customers choose; the rebuilding stays hands-on.

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 84. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →