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Craft and related trades workers · code 7544

Fumigators and other pest and weed controllers

AI can identify the insect from a photo. Someone still has to get under the floorboards.

AI barely touches any of the seven tasks, from mixing chemicals and filling tanks to spraying, fumigating and setting traps.

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

Fumigators and other pest and weed controllers use chemicals to remove harmful insects, small animals, wild plants and other unwanted organisms, to prevent damage to crops and to buildings and other structures and their surroundings, and to prevent health risks. Tasks include - (a) operating and monitoring equipment for spraying pests and weeds; (b) mixing chemicals according to instructions; (c) covering areas to specified depths with pesticides, applying knowledge of weather conditions, droplet sizes, elevation-to-distance ratios, and obstructions; (d) spraying or releasing chemical solutions or toxic gases, and setting traps to kill pests and vermin, such as mice, termites and roaches; (e) lifting, pushing and swinging nozzles, hoses and tubes in order to direct spray over designated areas; (f) filling sprayer tanks with water and chemicals; (g) cleaning and servicing machinery to ensure operating efficiency. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Fumigator - Pest controller - Weed controller Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Aerial crop sprayer - 3153

  • pest management 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 / 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

52 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 13.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 13.3 = 86.7.

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 67 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?

Fumigators and other pest and weed controllers 87

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.

  • Identifying pests from photos.
  • Monitoring with sensor-fitted traps.
  • Treatment records and compliance paperwork.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Handling chemicals safely.
  • Finding where pests are getting in.
  • Treating homes and businesses with people around.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Smart traps that report catches.
  • Lower-chemical, targeted treatments.
  • Drone spraying on farms.

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.

– could do without you

We don't have a measure of how much of this job AI could take over.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

67 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 42 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

67 How
hands-on
42 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 41.7 · hand skill 42.3 · cramped spaces 43.1 · 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 17, against an average of 13. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 17

    Mixing chemicals according to instructions

    Very Low
  2. 16

    Filling sprayer tanks with water and chemicals

    Very Low
  3. 16

    Operating and monitoring equipment for spraying pests and weeds

    Very Low
  4. 14

    Cleaning and servicing machinery to ensure operating efficiency.

    Very Low
  5. 14

    Covering areas to specified depths with pesticides, applying knowledge of weather conditions, droplet sizes, elevation-to-distance ratios, and obstructions

    Very Low
  6. 9

    Lifting, pushing and swinging nozzles, hoses and tubes in order to direct spray over designated areas

    Very Low
  7. 7

    Spraying or releasing chemical solutions or toxic gases and setting traps to kill pests and vermin, such as mice, termites and roaches

    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

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 0.02% 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

33
67

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 pest controllers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Every task rates Very Low: mixing chemicals, spraying and setting traps. Photo identification and smart traps help, but the job is handling chemicals safely in real buildings.

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 →