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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8350

Ships' deck crews and related workers

Ship’s deck crews and related workers carry out deck duties on board ships and similar duties on board other water-borne craft. Tasks include - (a) standing look-out watches at sea and when entering or leaving harbour or other narrow waters; (b) steering ships according to instructions; (c) handling ropes and wires, and operating mooring equipment; (d) maintaining and, in some cases, operating ships’ equipment, cargo gear, rigging, lifesaving and firefighting appliances; (e) performing deck and hull cleaning, scraping, painting and other maintenance duties as required; (f) breaking out, rigging and stowing cargo-handling gear, stationary rigging and running gear. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Boatswain - Ferry hand - Sailor - Tug hand

None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count. It ranks 65 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • fisheries deckhand
  • sailor
  • engine minder
  • decksman
  • matrose
  • ordinary seaman
  • boatswain

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

85.7
Holds up
against AI Not Exposed

AI could take on 14.3 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 14.3 = 85.7

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

70.6
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs

43.8
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 45.5 · hand skill 45.5 · cramped spaces 40.4 · 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 70.6 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 17.5, while the average is 14.3. 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. 17.5

    Steering ship according to instructions

    Very Low
  2. 15.3

    Standing look-out watches at sea and when entering or leaving harbour or other narrow waters

    Very Low
  3. 15

    Handling ropes and wires, and operates mooring equipment

    Very Low
  4. 13.5

    Breaking out, rigging and stowing cargo-handling gear, stationary rigging and running gear.

    Very Low
  5. 13.3

    Maintaining and, in some cases, operating ship’s equipment, cargo gear, rigging, lifesaving and firefighting appliances

    Very Low
  6. 11

    Performing deck and hull cleaning, scraping, painting and other maintenance duties as required

    Very Low

6 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.

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

AI helps you
37
AI does it for you
16

Helping wins by 21 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 8992

Compared with similar jobs

There are 39 jobs in the “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” group, averaging 80. This one is above that.