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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8343

Crane, hoist and related plant operators

Sensors can warn about the wind. Placing a load on a tower block's top floor still takes a steady operator.

AI barely touches any of the seven tasks, from running cranes and site hoists to operating ski lifts and opening bridges.

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

Crane, hoist and related plant operators monitor and operate stationary and mobile cranes and other hoisting equipment. Tasks include - (a) operating and monitoring stationary or mobile cranes by raising and lowering jibs and booms to lift, move, position or place equipment and materials; (b) operating and monitoring equipment for hoisting, lowering or raising workers and materials on construction sites or in mines; (c) operating and monitoring ski-lifts and similar equipment; (d) operating and monitoring machinery used to haul ferries or barges with goods, passengers and vehicles across short stretches of water; (e) operating and monitoring machinery to open and close bridges for the passage of road and water traffic; (f) operating and monitoring cranes equipped with dredging attachments to dredge waterways and other areas; (g) operating cranes mounted on boats or barges to lift, move and place equipment and materials. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Cable car operator - Chair-lift operator - Crane operator - Funicular driver - Hoist operator - Mine cage operator - Ski-lift operator

  • tower crane operator
  • container crane operator
  • automated cable vehicle controller
  • production plant crane operator
  • mobile crane operator

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

83 / 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

107 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 17.5 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 17.5 = 82.5.

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 62 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?

Crane, hoist and related plant operators 83

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.

  • Load monitoring and anti-collision sensors.
  • Lift planning software.
  • Maintenance and inspection logs.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Placing loads precisely around people on site.
  • Judging wind and conditions in the moment.
  • Stopping when something doesn't feel right.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Remote crane operation from control rooms.
  • Automated port cranes that need supervising.
  • Offshore wind installation work.

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

23 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 54 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

62 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?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 32 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

62 How
hands-on
32 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

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 6 US jobs .

finger skill 36.1 · hand skill 36.3 · cramped spaces 24.7 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 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 23, 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.

  1. 23

    Operating and monitoring ski-lifts and similar equipment

    Very Low
  2. 21

    Operating and monitoring machinery to open and close bridge for the passage of road and water traffic

    Very Low
  3. 18

    Operating and monitoring machinery used to haul ferry or barge with goods, passengers and vehicles across short stretches of water

    Very Low
  4. 16

    Operating and monitoring cranes equipped with dredging attachments to dredge waterways and other areas

    Very Low
  5. 16

    Operating and monitoring stationary or mobile cranes by raising and lowering jibs and booms, to lift, move, position or place equipment and materials

    Very Low
  6. 15

    Operating and monitoring equipment for hoisting, lowering or raising workers and materials on construction sites or in mines

    Very Low
  7. 15

    Operating cranes mounted on boats or barges to lift, move and place equipment and materials.

    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

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
54
AI does it for you
23

Sidekick wins, by 31 points.

How good a match is this?

3 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 7121, 7129, 7219

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 0.03% 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

37
63

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.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 4 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.

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 crane operators be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

Not about AI chatbots. Every task rates Very Low, from tower cranes to bridges and ski lifts. Some ports already run automated cranes, and remote operation is growing, so the job leans towards controlling machines from a cabin or a screen.

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 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” family, averaging 80. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →