{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/construction-managers/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Construction Managers",
    "soc_code": "11-9021",
    "category": "Management",
    "us_employment": 380360,
    "median_annual_wage": 114990
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 65,
  "contested": true,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 12,
    "embodiment": 15,
    "liability_shield": 9,
    "trust_premium": 13,
    "judgment_accountability": 16
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Critical-path resequencing after a rain delay, three-week lookahead pull planning with foremen, and punchlist walkthroughs still need someone on site making calls, but earned-value reports, pay application backup, submittal logs, and RFI first drafts are already generated from Procore/Autodesk data — roughly half the week's hours, which is why this sits at 12 rather than 16.",
    "embodiment": "You are in the field most days — climbing scaffold to verify rebar placement before a pour, walking the deck to see whether the drywall sub actually has eight bodies or three, standing in a trench box during a utility conflict — in weather, on active heavy-equipment sites; the 15 rather than 18 reflects that the trailer and preconstruction phases are genuinely desk-bound.",
    "liability_shield": "Many states require a general contractor or B-license for the entity and some (Florida, Nevada) tie it to a named qualifying agent who is personally exposed, but the CM on a project run by a licensed GC often holds no license of their own and CCM is voluntary — that split is what puts it at 9 instead of 14.",
    "trust_premium": "Owners and developers rehire specific CMs by name, and your ability to get a concrete sub to move a crew for you next Tuesday rests on years of paying them on time; it stops short of 17 because on public bid work the low number wins and the CM is assigned, not chosen.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether to accept a nonconforming pour or break it out, whether conditions justify stopping work under OSHA 1926, and how to allocate float when the steel is three weeks late — calls made on incomplete information where being wrong costs seven figures or someone's life, and your name is on the daily report and the change order."
  },
  "rationale": "The paperwork half of this job — schedule updates, cost tracking, submittal and RFI drafting, progress reports, bid comparisons — is exactly what current AI does well, and construction software vendors are shipping it now. The other half is walking a live site, reading whether a sub is actually staffed to hit next week's pour, resolving a design conflict in the field, and being the person the owner and the safety inspector hold responsible. Licensure is uneven (general contractor licenses in many states, CCM voluntary), so the shield is real but partial.",
  "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat as scheduling and documentation staff shrink around a smaller number of field-accountable managers running more square footage each.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State contractor licensing boards or public-works statutes requiring a named licensed general contractor / qualifying individual to personally sign and be liable for schedule baselines, delay claims and safety plans on public projects — an extension of existing 'qualifying party' rules (e.g. Arizona ROC, California CSLB) to explicitly cover AI-generated schedules and cost reports. Also OSHA multi-employer citation policy naming a specific competent person for AI-flagged hazards.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Surety and builder's-risk insurers conditioning bonding capacity on a credentialed human (CCM, PMP, or state-licensed GC) attesting to the CPM schedule and pay applications — bond underwriting already scrutinizes named project staff on public bids.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: if vendor tools (Procore, Autodesk, Buildots/OpenSpace) absorb submittal logs, RFI drafting, progress photo reporting and cost coding, the residual day is field conflict resolution, sub staffing judgment, and change-order negotiation — the tier current models cannot do without a body and authority on site.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Prime contract terms and project labor agreements naming a single on-site superintendent/CM with stop-work authority and sole authority to accept design deviations — already standard in AIA A201 and many union PLAs; broader adoption of explicit 'no AI-generated approval of field changes' clauses would harden it.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Judgment_accountability is already near ceiling at 16 and embodiment is structurally capped — the realistic headroom is the liability shield, and it is bounded because licensure attaches to the firm's qualifying party, not to every CM. A large fraction of these 380k workers are assistant/project-level managers whose licensed superior signs; automation of the routine tier compresses that lower rung regardless of what happens at the top."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs disagreed; merge is rounding-dependent",
    "outcome": "unresolved — published score left unchanged",
    "run_totals": [
      65,
      67
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "EXPOSED",
      "SAFE"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 263480,
        "wage": 91370
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 278460,
        "wage": 93370
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 293380,
        "wage": 95260
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 285640,
        "wage": 97180
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 284750,
        "wage": 98890
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 303220,
        "wage": 101480
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 329190,
        "wage": 104900
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 348330,
        "wage": 106980
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 380360,
        "wage": 114990
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 44.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}