Skip to content
man bot

Craft and related trades workers · code 7543

Product graders and testers (excluding foods and beverages)

Product graders and testers (excluding foods and beverages) inspect, test, sort, sample and weigh raw materials, manufactured components and non-comestible goods produced or sold, to ensure compliance with quality standards, to identify defects, wear and deviations from specifications, and to grade and classify them according to their quality. Tasks include - (a) inspecting and testing products, parts and materials for conformity with specifications and standards; (b) grading and classifying natural textile fibres for spinning and winding; (c) discarding or rejecting products, materials and equipment not meeting specifications; (d) analysing and interpreting blueprints, data, manuals and other materials to determine specifications, inspection and testing procedures; (e) notifying supervisors and other personnel of production problems, and assisting in identifying and correcting these problems; (f) recording inspection or test data such as weights, temperatures, grades or moisture content, and quantities inspected or graded; (g) marking items with details such as grade and acceptance or rejection status; (h) measuring dimensions of products using instruments such as rulers, calipers, gauges or micrometers; (i) analysing test data and making computations as necessary to determine test results. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Product grader - Quality inspector - Wool classer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Product safety inspector - 3257 - Food grader - 7515 - Fur grader - 7531 - Pelt grader - 7535

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 249 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • non-destructive testing specialist
  • product quality controller
  • printed circuit board test technician
  • veneer grader
  • product assembly inspector
  • battery test technician
  • product grader
  • automated optical inspection operator
  • automotive test driver
  • product quality inspector
  • control panel tester

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

69.1
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 30.9 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 30.9 = 69.1

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

58.3
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

42.9
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 44.6 · hand skill 42.9 · cramped spaces 41.3 · 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

What this number leaves out This job rates 58.3 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, and for work like this robots are the bigger question.

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 55.8, while the average is 30.9. 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. 55.8

    Analysing test data and making computations as necessary to determine test results.

    Medium
  2. 36.5

    Recording inspection or test data, such as weights, temperatures, grades or moisture content, and quantities inspected or graded

    Low
  3. 31.5

    Analysing and interpreting blueprints, data, manuals, and other materials to determine specifications, inspection and testing procedures

    Low
  4. 31.5

    Marking items with details such as grade and acceptance or rejection status

    Low
  5. 28.5

    Discarding or rejecting products, materials and equipment not meeting specifications

    Low
  6. 27.8

    Notifying supervisors and other personnel of production problems, and assisting in identifying and correcting these problems

    Low
  7. 26.5

    Inspecting and testing products, parts and materials for conformity with specifications and standards

    Low
  8. 24

    Measuring dimensions of products using instruments such as rulers, callipers, gauges, or micrometers

    Very Low
  9. 15.8

    Grading and classifying natural textile fibres for spinning and winding

    Very Low

9 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
65
AI does it for you
36.5

Helping wins by 28.5 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 3633, 3999, 8393

Compared with similar jobs

There are 65 jobs in the “Craft and related trades workers” group, averaging 83.7. This one is below that.