EXPOSED
The core of this job — pulling cable through walls and ceilings, mounting displays and speakers, terminating connectors, aiming projectors, and diagnosing why a conference room won't pass audio ten minutes before a meeting — happens in physical spaces no robot can navigate. What AI does erode is the paperwork tier: system design drafts, equipment schedules, bid documentation, and first-line troubleshooting scripts that customers can now run themselves via chatbot. Low-voltage licensing exists in some states but it's a thin shield compared to electrical work, and cloud-managed AV platforms are quietly removing the recurring service calls that used to pay the bills.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $39,510 → $52,600 +6.5% 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
+6.6%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 19,780 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +6.6% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 60/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
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.
~2,600 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
InstallerRadio RepairerAudio InstallerCable InstallerSmart Home ExpertMaintenance WorkerPhonograph MechanicSatellite InstallerAudio Video MechanicMaintenance EngineerAudio Video InstallerLow Voltage InstallerVideo Player MechanicElectric Organ CheckerHome Theater InstallerTape Recorder MechanicTape Recorder RepairerVideo Systems RepairerField Service InstallerHome Theater SpecialistLow Voltage ElectricianSatellite Dish RepairerVideo Recorder MechanicSatellite Dish Installer
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Fishing cable through a plenum, mounting a 200-lb LED wall on unfamiliar backing, terminating and testing HDBaseT runs, and chasing an intermittent ground loop are irreducibly manual — 15 rather than 18 because the design-and-quote side (rack elevations, signal-flow drawings, gear lists) and remote firmware/config work are already being pushed into software and cloud dashboards.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments Ladders, lifts, crawlspaces, ceiling tiles, occupied boardrooms and half-built construction sites with other trades in the way — 17 rather than 20 only because a meaningful share of hours happen at a bench or in a rack room rather than outdoors in weather or at height on a tower.
Certification preferred, not legally required A 6 reflects that low-voltage/limited-energy licences (e.g. Texas FSL, Oregon LEA, various municipal permits) and CTS/CTS-I certification gate some work and get written into bid specs, but no one is stamping a signed document that carries personal exposure the way an electrician or PE does.
Meaningful discretion You decide on site whether the wall will hold the mount, which of three plausible causes is killing the video sync, and whether to substitute gear when the specified matrix is backordered — a 12 rather than 16 because manufacturer install specs, drawings, and code limits define the envelope you are working inside, and a wrong call costs a rework, not a life.
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 (15/20 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 (6/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (10/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (12/20) 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 28 of this occupation's 60 points (47%).
Embodiment (17/20) 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.
No occupation passed every test: close enough to audiovisual equipment installers and repairers on skills and subject matter, at least 10 points more resistant, no big jump in training, no new licence, no pay cut, and not shrinking on its own. That happens for 223 of the 654 occupations here that aren't SAFE, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving the section off.
The usual reason is that exposure travels with the skill profile. The jobs most similar to yours tend to be exposed for the same reasons yours is, so the near neighbours don't clear the gap — and the ones that do are a different kind of work, not a transfer of what you already know. Read that as a limit of this method, not a verdict that you're stuck: it only compares whole occupations, and it cannot see specialisation, industry, or anything you'd bring that isn't in a federal skill survey.
Here is that claim on your own job rather than in the abstract. These are the three occupations closest to this one by skill and subject matter — the places the work would most naturally transfer — with what the register scores them:
That is the whole problem in three lines. The nearest work is not meaningfully safer, so there is no move here that trades a similar skill set for a better verdict. This is not us running out of ideas — it is what the neighbourhood looks like.
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 76/100 — SAFE.
Genuine two-tier structure: as chatbot self-service absorbs first-line troubleshooting and AI drafts schedules and bids, the residual day is commissioning, acoustic tuning, RF coordination for wireless mics under shrinking spectrum, and diagnosing intermittent faults across mixed-vendor stacks — work that requires being in the room with test gear. Score rises as the routine tier leaves rather than through any new rule.
States that currently exempt low-voltage/Class 2 AV work from licensing adding it to the electrical licensing scheme, or expanding existing limited-energy license categories (e.g., Oregon LEA, Minnesota PLT, Washington 06 low-voltage) to require a licensed installer of record signing off on in-wall cabling, fire-stopping penetrations, and plenum-rated runs. Also NFPA 70 / NEC Article 725 and 800 enforcement paired with local AHJ inspection sign-off on AV cable pathways, and mass-notification/emergency-communication systems under NFPA 72 which already require certified technicians and a signed record of completion.
ADA and building-code enforcement of assistive listening systems (hearing loops per IEC 60118-4) in assembly spaces, requiring a certified commissioning report from a named technician — DOJ ADA settlements already push this in courthouses and theaters.
Growth of AV work tied to life-safety and courtroom/legislative record systems — mass notification, emergency paging, evidentiary recording — where a failure has legal consequence and an individual signs the commissioning documentation. Also structured commissioning standards (AVIXA ANSI/AVIXA 10:2013 Audiovisual Systems Performance Verification) being written into owner contracts as a deliverable.
Narrow route only: high-end residential and performance-venue clients buying a named integrator for acoustic and calibration judgment (ISF/HAA/Dolby certification as a purchase criterion). This does not extend to commercial conference-room fleets, where cloud-managed platforms are actively removing the human touchpoint.
The limit. The recurring-service revenue that funds this trade is being disintermediated by cloud-managed AV (Crestron XiO, Q-SYS Reflect, Zoom/Teams device management) regardless of any licensing gain, so liability and judgment gains can raise resistance without preserving headcount. Low-voltage licensing, even where expanded, is cheap to obtain and does not create scarcity the way electrical or plumbing licensure does.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,060 | $51,210 -3% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 760 | $71,990 +37% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 680 | $51,530 -2% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 600 | $46,400 -12% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 470 | $58,660 +12% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 470 | $63,130 +20% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 430 | $64,490 +23% |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 400 | $50,140 -5% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 240 | $78,580 +49% |
| Waterbury-Shelton, CT | 70 | $73,870 +40% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 760 | $71,990 +37% |
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 60. 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.