EXPOSED
Swapping ATM dispenser modules, clearing paper paths in high-volume copiers, replacing fusers and card readers, and re-imaging POS terminals are hands-on jobs that no robot does today — that's the real moat. The exposure is different: remote telemetry and vendor diagnostics already handle the fault isolation and parts-recommendation work that used to justify a truck roll, and the installed base of office machines and bank branches is shrinking. The threat here is demand contraction and remote-first support models, not an AI that turns a screwdriver.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $39,530 → $47,810 -3.2% 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
-0.9%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 65,600 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Shrinking, but not obviously because of AI
The BLS projects -0.9% by 2034, but at 46/100 this work is only moderately exposed — not the profile of a job current AI can simply do. Occupations shrink for many reasons, and the score does not point at automation as this one's cause.
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.
~7,600 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
MechanicRepair AgentField EngineerField TechnicianComputer MechanicComputer RepairerCopier TechnicianMachine RepairmanRepair TechnicianComputer InstallerPrinter TechnicianService TechnicianSupport TechnicianTypewriter AlignerAssembly TechnicianComputer TechnicianDictaphone MechanicElectronic MechanicTypewriter MechanicTypewriter RepairerFax Machine RepairerOffice Machine WirerComputer TechnologistDictaphone Technician
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier At 13 the physical work — pulling a fuser, reseating a dispenser, replacing a bill validator, swapping a hard drive — stays manual, but the diagnostic half of the call that used to fill your day is increasingly done before you arrive by machine telemetry and vendor error-code lookups, which is what keeps this out of the 14-20 band.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work inside a bank vestibule at 2am, in copier rooms with the machine half-disassembled on the floor, in retail backrooms and hospital wards, hauling parts and lifting 60lb modules — nothing about the placement, cabling, or contamination of a real installed machine is a controlled environment, which is why this sits at 16 rather than mid-band.
No licence, no signature requirement There is no state licence to repair an ATM or a multifunction printer; OEM certifications (Canon, Diebold Nixdorf, CompTIA A+) gate who gets dispatched but the service contract sits with the employer or vendor, so nothing legal blocks a lower-cost or remote channel from taking the work.
Meaningful discretion Most calls run against OEM service manuals, error codes, and escalation trees, with discretion showing up in judgment calls like whether a repeat-jam copier is worth another fuser or should be flagged for replacement, and in cash-handling and chain-of-custody decisions inside an ATM — real, but bounded by procedure, hence 8.
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 (13/20 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 (2/20) 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 (8/20) 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 17 of this occupation's 46 points (37%).
Embodiment (16/20) 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.
Medical Equipment Repairers EXPOSED
Motorcycle Mechanics SAFE
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 65/100, still EXPOSED.
Genuine two-tier structure: consumable swaps, paper-path clearing and re-imaging are being pushed to customer self-service and remote scripts, leaving retrofit and compliance work — EMV/contactless upgrades, ADA voice-guidance retrofits, dispenser recalibration after a jam-and-loss event, forensic teardown of tampered fascias. If the routine tier keeps migrating to branch staff and remote tooling, the residual day is dominated by non-scripted work even though the headcount base shrinks.
Key-injection and tamper work is already fenced by PCI PIN Security Requirements and ASC X9 TR-31/TR-34: only certified personnel under dual control may load or replace encryption keys in ATM EPPs and POS PIN pads. If PCI SSC extends certified-technician-plus-dual-control requirements from key loading to all EPP/card-reader module replacement, and card networks impose fines on the acquirer for uncertified service, a named certified individual becomes the required signer on a large share of ATM and POS calls.
Banks buying badged, background-checked, bonded in-person technicians specifically because insider cash and skimmer risk makes an anonymous or remote-guided fix unacceptable — already visible in ATM servicing contracts requiring FBI-level background checks and two-person branch access. If insurers writing cash-in-device and fraud-loss coverage make named vetted-technician rosters a condition of coverage, the human-specific premium hardens.
State ATM skimming statutes (e.g. New York, Florida, California penal provisions on card-reading devices) plus bank regulator guidance could require that any device found with a skimmer be handled by a technician who documents chain of custody and files an attested tamper report. If FinCEN/FFIEC exam guidance formalises that attestation as a named-person record, the report acquires personal exposure.
Cash-discrepancy adjudication: the technician on site decides whether a shortage is a dispenser fault, a jam-retract, or theft, and that call drives the bank's Reg E provisional-credit and SAR decisions. If bank operating procedures formally designate the technician's on-site finding as the determination of record for dispute resolution rather than an input to an ops team, the role owns the consequential ambiguous call.
Little headroom. The work is already hands-in-chassis in unpredictable branch and back-office settings; the only upward move would be a shift toward heavier vault, safe, and armoured-fascia installation work that requires two-person physical handling.
The limit. Every lever here concentrates value in a shrinking installed base. ATM fleet counts and office copier volumes are contracting, so even a fully realised liability shield and trust premium raise the score for a smaller number of jobs — the register measures per-worker displacement resistance, not employment level. Realistic ceiling is low-to-mid 60s, and only for the subset of technicians who hold PCI PIN-security certification and bank-side clearances; general copier and office-machine service has no comparable route.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 3,480 | $59,530 +25% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 2,650 | $46,560 -3% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 2,610 | $61,340 +28% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 2,590 | $45,710 -4% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 1,490 | $49,470 +3% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 1,440 | $45,980 -4% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,390 | $42,020 -12% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI | 1,200 | $54,690 +14% |
| Waterbury-Shelton, CT | 40 | $64,100 +34% |
| Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT | 170 | $63,410 +33% |
| Manchester-Nashua, NH | 70 | $62,090 +30% |
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 46. 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.