SAFE
The core of this job is physically getting to a gas meter, regulator, hydraulic valve, or industrial control loop — often in a vault, crawl space, pipeline right-of-way, or plant interstitial — and disassembling, calibrating, and leak-testing it by hand. AI can write the service report, pull the schematic, and suggest a fault tree, but it cannot torque a valve bonnet or sniff out a gas leak. Most of these workers operate under DOT Operator Qualification rules or state gas-fitting requirements, which put a named, qualified human on the hook for pressure-bearing work.
Nearly all of this fall was the 2020 shock. It has been climbing back since.
Median pay $58,100 → $74,340 +2.4% 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
+1.3% 47,700 → 48,300 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +1.3% 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.
~3,900 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
MechanicMetermanSalvagerValve GrinderGas Pit WorkerGas TechnicianMeter MechanicMeter RepairerValve MechanicMeter InstallerScale InstallerShut Off WorkerGas Meter ProverMeter TechnicianValve TechnicianAir Valve MechanicAir Valve RepairerControl SpecialistControl TechnicianGas Meter MechanicGas Utility WorkerPyrometer MechanicRegulator MechanicService Technician
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Rebuilding a pressure regulator's diaphragm and spring stack, bench-testing a control valve's actuator stroke, and re-seating a leaking gate valve are manual sequences no software substitutes for — the 16 rather than 19 reflects that diagnostics, trending on smart positioners, and route/work-order scheduling genuinely are being pulled into asset-management platforms.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work in meter pits, pipeline vaults, confined spaces requiring atmospheric monitoring, and live plant piping in whatever weather the right-of-way delivers, with hand tools, pipe wrenches, and a combustible-gas indicator — the physical conditions are the job, and only the report-writing happens at a screen.
Licensed human required and personally liable DOT Part 192 Subpart N Operator Qualification and state gas-fitter or journeyman licences name you individually as qualified for each covered task and require re-evaluation after an incident, but the utility or plant owner carries the code compliance and the pressure-vessel liability, which keeps this below the surveyor-or-PE tier.
Meaningful discretion You decide whether a valve gets rebuilt or replaced, whether a line can stay in service at reduced pressure, and whether an odor call warrants shutting off and evacuating — real calls with explosion consequences, though set-point specs, MAOP limits, and company operating procedures bound most of them.
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 (11/20) 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 (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 34 of this occupation's 68 points (50%).
Embodiment (18/20) 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 80/100, still SAFE.
PHMSA tightening of 49 CFR Part 192 Subpart N Operator Qualification — specifically expanding the list of 'covered tasks' to include control-loop calibration and safety-instrumented-system (SIS) proof testing, and requiring a named qualified individual's signature on each pressure test record rather than crew-level attestation. PHMSA has repeatedly reopened OQ rulemaking after NTSB recommendations following incidents like San Bruno and Merrimack Valley; the Merrimack Valley overpressure event already drove the PIPES Act 2020 requirement for a qualified professional engineer to seal distribution work plans.
Task-mix shift: as remote SCADA telemetry and AI diagnostics absorb the routine 'go read the regulator, log the setpoint' visits, the remaining dispatches are the anomalous ones — the leak of unknown origin, the valve that won't seat, the decision to blow down a line versus keep a hospital in service. The call to isolate or depressurize a live segment carries consequences the technician owns on site, and it becomes a larger share of the day.
Same two-tier shift raises the floor: routine calibration rounds and report writing are the automatable tier; hot-tapping, in-service valve rebuilds in confined vaults, and abnormal-condition response are not, and become the bulk of the job.
State gas-fitting license expansion: states that currently allow utility-employee exemptions from journeyman gas-fitter licensure (varies widely) closing that exemption, plus insurer requirements that IEC 61511 SIS proof-test records carry a named certified functional-safety technician (TUV FS Tech) signature. Boiler and pressure-vessel insurers (FM Global, HSB) already condition coverage on documented test records.
The limit. Trust premium has no realistic route — the buyer is a utility or plant operator purchasing compliance and uptime, not a human touch, and no end customer chooses their gas fitter. Embodiment is already near ceiling at 18. Realistic top is high 70s; the binding limit is that the work is already physically irreducible, so most remaining headroom is in the OQ/licensure paperwork layer.
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 3,420 | $61,680 -17% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 3,110 | $103,780 +40% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1,730 | $56,080 -25% |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 1,070 | $100,090 +35% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,050 | $90,740 +22% |
| Midland, TX | 1,030 | $58,230 -22% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 840 | $95,520 +28% |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 620 | $58,680 -21% |
| Modesto, CA | 40 | $133,990 +80% |
| Fresno, CA | 100 | $132,360 +78% |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA | 330 | $131,120 +76% |
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.