SAFE
The work is physically inseparable from the airframe: borescoping engines, torquing fasteners to spec, rigging control surfaces, replacing hydraulic lines and pulling panels in confined wing and tail sections. AI is already eating the paperwork layer — maintenance manual lookup, defect trend analysis, parts ordering, log entries — but an FAA-certificated A&P must personally sign the return-to-service, and that signature carries individual liability. Judgment on ambiguous squawks (intermittent faults, borderline corrosion, damage-tolerance calls) is where the value concentrates.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $64,090 → $79,870 -0.3% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
+4% 139,400 → 145,000 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +4% more of these jobs by 2034. Note that safe does not mean well paid — several of the fastest-growing resistant occupations are among the lowest paid on the register.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~11,300 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
EnginemanJet MechanicAircraft WorkerAirplane RiggerAirplane TesterAirline MechanicEngine InstallerMissile MechanicAircraft MechanicAircraft RestorerAirframe MechanicAirplane MechanicAviation MechanicCarburetor ExpertIgnition MechanicHydraulic MechanicPreflight MechanicPropeller MechanicAircraft MaintainerHelicopter MechanicHelicopter RepairerJet Engine MechanicMagneto ElectricianPowerplant Mechanic
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Chasing an intermittent electrical fault through a wire bundle behind the cockpit sidewall, or deciding whether a corrosion pit in a stringer is within the SRM's blend-out limits, cannot be reduced to a scripted sequence — the 16 rather than 19 reflects that a real share of the shift is now digitised: AMOS/TRAX task cards, ECAM/OMS fault codes narrowing the diagnosis before you open a panel, and predictive engine trend monitoring flagging the unit before you'd have found it.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments A 19 is what you get when the job is done inside a wheel well, on a cherry picker at the vertical stabiliser, or lying in the belly with a torque wrench and a mirror — outdoor line stations in rain and freezing ramp wind, cowlings that weigh more than the manual says, and fasteners you have to feel to know are seated.
Licensed human required and personally liable 14 CFR 43.9 and 43.7 mean the return-to-service entry carries your certificate number, and the FAA can and does pull A&P tickets for improper approval — the 15 rather than 19 is because you sign under an operator's or repair station's Part 145 procedures and inspection authority, so IA holders and DERs absorb the heaviest calls above you.
Exists to be accountable for ambiguous calls Deciding whether to defer a squawk to the MEL or ground a revenue aircraft with 140 passengers waiting is your call with the manual open and the captain standing there, and damage-tolerance judgments on borderline dents and delamination sit at 14 because the framework exists in the SRM but the interpretation is yours to defend later.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (16/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (15/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (7/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (14/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 36 of this occupation's 71 points (51%).
Embodiment (19/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 82/100, still SAFE.
Task-mix shift as the routine tier is automated: manual lookup, defect trend analysis, parts ordering and log entry drop out, leaving intermittent-fault troubleshooting, borderline corrosion assessment and non-standard repair design. This occupation genuinely has two tiers and the residual tier is the judgment tier.
FAA rulemaking or policy guidance (e.g., an update to 14 CFR 43.9/43.13 or an AC on digital maintenance records) that explicitly bars AI-generated or AI-assisted determinations from substituting for the certificated A&P/IA's judgment, and requires the signer to attest to independent verification of any machine-generated inspection finding — mirroring how EASA Part-145 requires named certifying staff. Would also extend to a named A&P countersignature on automated borescope/NDT image analysis.
NTSB findings or an AD following an incident traced to over-reliance on automated diagnostics, prompting carrier maintenance-control procedures (and IBT/AMFA contract language on the right to refuse an AI-cleared aircraft) that formally place the ambiguous-squawk call with the named technician rather than the maintenance-control algorithm.
Expansion of Inspection Authorization (IA) scope, or insurer requirements from aviation underwriters (e.g., Global Aerospace, AIG Aerospace) mandating a named IA sign-off on damage-tolerance and corrosion-level calls before coverage attaches — making the personal signature a condition of insurability, not just of airworthiness.
Limited route only: owner-flown GA and warbird/vintage segments where owners select a specific named A&P shop. This is a small share of the 138k and does not scale to airline or MRO work, where the buyer is a fleet operator indifferent to which certificated individual signs.
The limit. Already 71 with embodiment near-maxed; realistic headroom is in liability_shield and judgment_accountability, roughly low-80s. Trust premium is structurally capped because the paying customer is an airline or lessor, not a person choosing a mechanic. The real downside risk is not AI but design-for-no-maintenance and offshoring of heavy checks to foreign Part-145 stations, neither of which this register captures.
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 8,000 | $94,920 +19% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 6,460 | $78,260 -2% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 5,110 | $127,140 +59% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 5,020 | $83,250 +4% |
| Tulsa, OK | 4,520 | — |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 3,950 | $103,900 +30% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 3,810 | $76,610 -4% |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 3,310 | $68,140 -15% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 5,110 | $127,140 +59% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 3,950 | $103,900 +30% |
| Waterbury-Shelton, CT | 70 | $101,660 +27% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 71. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.