Skip to content
man bot
Compare

Elementary occupations · code 9312

Civil engineering labourers

AI can plan the road works. It can't dig the trench.

AI barely touches any of the five tasks, from digging trenches and breaking concrete with a jackhammer to loading materials and clearing the site.

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

Civil engineering labourers perform routine tasks in connection with the building and maintenance of roads, railways, dams and other civil engineering projects. Tasks include - (a) digging and filling holes and trenches using hand-held tools; (b) shovelling and spreading gravel and related materials; (c) trimming and cutting rocks and concrete and bitumen surfaces using jack-hammers; (d) loading and unloading construction materials, excavated material and equipment and transporting them around construction sites using wheelbarrows and hand trucks; (e) cleaning work sites and removing obstructions. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Construction labourer (civil engineering) - Earthmoving labourer - Maintenance labourer (dams)

  • civil engineering worker

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

91 / 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

8 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 5 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 9.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 9.3 = 90.7.

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 73 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?

Civil engineering labourers 91

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.

  • Site plans and daily briefings on a tablet.
  • Logging hours, materials and safety checks.
  • Setting out with GPS-guided equipment.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Hard physical work on uneven, changing ground.
  • Working safely around heavy machinery.
  • Fixing the small problems the plan didn't expect.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Working alongside GPS-guided and semi-automated machines.
  • Climate adaptation work such as drainage and flood defences.
  • Digital safety checks and sign-offs.

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

14 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 38 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

73 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 40 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

73 How
hands-on
40 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 2 US jobs .

finger skill 42.9 · hand skill 43.8 · cramped spaces 34 · 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 13, against an average of 9. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 13

    Cleaning worksites and removing obstructions.

    Very Low
  2. 10

    Loading and unloading construction materials, excavated material and equipment and transporting them around construction sites using wheelbarrows and hand trucks

    Very Low
  3. 9

    Shovelling and spreading gravel and related materials

    Very Low
  4. 8

    Trimming and cutting rocks and concrete and bitumen surfaces using jack-hammers

    Very Low
  5. 7

    Digging and filling holes and trenches using hand held tools

    Very Low

5 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
38
AI does it for you
14

Sidekick wins, by 24 points.

How good a match is this?

4 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 8211, 8215, 8216, 8219

So, should civil engineering labourers be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. Clearing sites, shovelling, cutting and digging all rate Very Low. Machine control and planning software are changing how big jobs run, but labourers are the people who make the plan real on uneven ground.

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 33 jobs in the “Elementary occupations” family, averaging 85. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →