SAFE
Laying brick and CMU to line and level on scaffolding, mixing and buttering mortar, cutting units to fit, and tuckpointing deteriorated joints are physical tasks in weather-exposed, never-identical site conditions — the hardest thing for robotics, not language models. Bricklaying robots (SAM, Hadrian) exist but handle only long straight runs on prepared sites and still need masons for setup, corners, openings, and cleanup. The exposure is on the paperwork edge: takeoffs, material estimates, and bid documents, plus modest wage pressure if semi-automated laying reaches mid-size commercial jobs.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $53,100 → $62,120 -6.4% 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
+3.2%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 52,550 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +3.2% 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.
~5,600 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
LinerMasonFitterSetterTenderPatcherRelinerBlockmasonBricklayerBrickmasonCasing ManDoor LinerDuct LayerAdobe LayerBlock LayerBlock MasonBlock PaverBrick LayerBrick MasonBrick PaverLadle LinerMason LinerSpout LinerBottom Liner
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Striking a joint to the right profile before the mortar sets, adjusting the mud's consistency by feel as the temperature and unit suction change, and toothing into an existing 80-year-old wall whose courses don't match modern brick dimensions are judgment-in-the-hands tasks with no digital intermediary — hence 18 rather than a perfect 20, since the estimating, layout math, and coursing calculations at the front end of a job are genuinely software-shaped work.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work off swing stage or tubular scaffold in heat and cold, lift 30-plus-pound CMU thousands of times a shift, run a wet saw, and lay to a line strung across an uneven footing that nobody surveyed — there is no controlled cell, no fixed workpiece position, and no version of this job that happens indoors at a desk.
Certification preferred, not legally required There is no state bricklaying licence and no personal exposure on your signature: the general contractor's structural engineer stamps the wall design, the special inspector pulls the prism tests under IBC Chapter 17, and your journeyman card or NCCER credential proves training but confers no legal monopoly on the work — the 6 reflects apprenticeship-based credentialing and OSHA scaffold competency requirements, not licensure.
Meaningful discretion You decide on the spot whether a footing is out enough to require re-layout, how to bond an unplanned opening, whether yesterday's lift got frozen and has to come down, and which mortar type to point historic soft brick with so you don't spall the face — real calls with cost and durability consequences, though drawings, coursing details, and a foreman's direction bound them, which is why this sits at 13 and not higher.
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 (18/20 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 (11/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (13/20) 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 30 of this occupation's 68 points (44%).
Embodiment (20/20) 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 79/100, still SAFE.
Continued growth of historic-preservation and high-end architectural masonry where buyers pay explicitly for hand-laid, hand-tooled work — expansion of preservation trades certification (e.g. Preservation Maryland/PTN programs, IMI's craft certification) and specification language naming certified restoration masons on landmark and tax-credit projects.
Task-mix shift as takeoffs, estimating, and bid paperwork are absorbed by software, leaving the day almost entirely site-condition craft work; already near ceiling so headroom is small.
Adoption of structural masonry special-inspection requirements (IBC Chapter 17 / TMS 402 Level B-C inspection) into more state and municipal codes, plus state-level licensing of masonry contractors (e.g. the way NC, CA, LA license masonry as a specialty trade) so a named certified mason foreman signs off on prism tests, grout lifts, and reinforcement placement with personal exposure. Also credentialed restoration masons required on Secretary of the Interior Standards tax-credit historic jobs.
If semi-automated laying takes the long straight runs, the remaining human scope concentrates in corners, openings, arches, lintel bearing, movement-joint placement, and diagnosing existing-wall failure before repointing — calls where a wrong read causes water intrusion or collapse. Mortar-compatibility judgment on soft historic brick is already a consequential, unautomatable call.
The limit. embodiment is maxed and task_resistance is near maxed; realistic upside is a few points from licensing/inspection and preservation demand. The genuine risk here is not displacement but wage compression on high-volume commercial runs, which the register does not score.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 3,010 | $92,300 +49% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 2,140 | $89,980 +45% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 1,910 | $60,670 -2% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1,590 | $59,400 -4% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,220 | $63,450 +2% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 1,210 | $75,970 +22% |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 1,120 | $62,830 +1% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,090 | $56,410 -9% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 820 | $97,960 +58% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 310 | $97,830 +57% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 1,060 | $96,960 +56% |
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 68. 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.