COOKED
The core of this job — converting engineers' sketches and specs into wiring diagrams, one-line and schematic drawings, panel layouts, cable schedules and bills of materials — is structured CAD/EDA work that generative tools and parametric automation already produce at usable quality. There is no licensure: the professional engineer stamps the drawing, so the drafter carries no personal liability and no signature moat. What persists is field verification of as-built conditions, reconciling messy legacy documentation, and catching errors AI confidently generates in code-compliance details.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $61,530 → $76,870 -0.1% 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
-5.6%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 17,920 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Exposed, and shrinking
Both signals point the same way: the tasks are largely automatable and the BLS projects -5.6% by 2034. This is the case where the score and the forecast agree, and it is the one worth taking seriously.
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.
~1,700 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
DrafterDesignerLine StakerMask DesignerDesign DrafterAutoCAD DrafterLayout DesignerCircuit DesignerStaking EngineerSystems DesignerEngineering AgentAutoCAD TechnicianElectrical DrafterElectronic DrafterElectrical DesignerMask Layout DesignerCircuit Board DrafterDistribution DesignerTest Fixture DesignerAnalog Design EngineerInstrumentation DesignerPrinted Circuit DesignerElectrical Systems DrafterElectrical Controls Designer
Holding it up: task resistance . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier Generating a schematic from a netlist, a panel schedule from a load list, or a cable schedule from a connection table is already scripted work in AutoCAD Electrical, EPLAN and Altium, and it lands at 7 rather than 3 because the residual — reading a 1978 hand-inked riser diagram, chasing down which conduit was actually pulled, and spotting that the auto-generated feeder violates NEC 310.15(b) ampacity derating — still needs someone who has seen a real panel.
Some physical or field component A 5 reflects the occasional as-built walkdown, ceiling-tile pop, and panel-schedule verification trip; the drawing itself gets produced sitting at two monitors, and most drafters go weeks without leaving the office.
No licence, no signature requirement There is no state license to draft: the PE or licensed electrical engineer seals the sheet and answers to the board and the insurer, and while ASME Y14.5 or NICET certification helps you get hired, no statute requires it and no regulator can pull your credential — hence 3, not 0, only because employer QC checklists give a thin procedural footing.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs You choose sheet organization, layer standards, symbol libraries and how to break a large one-line across sheets, but the real calls — conductor sizing, breaker coordination, code interpretation — belong to the engineer, and your discretion is bounded by CAD standards manuals and client drafting specs, which puts it at 6 rather than 10.
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 (7/20 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 (3/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (4/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (6/20) 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 13 of this occupation's 25 points (52%).
Embodiment (5/20) 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.
Aerospace Engineers EXPOSED
Electrical Engineers EXPOSED
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 38/100 — EXPOSED.
Task-mix shift is genuinely two-tier here: if generative EDA/CAD absorbs routine schematic and BOM generation, what remains is reconciling undocumented legacy plants, as-built discrepancies, and NEC/IEEE code-detail checking that models get confidently wrong. Watch for drafter job postings retitled toward 'design technician / as-built coordinator' with field-verification duties dominant.
If arc-flash study updates, panel-schedule reconciliation and equipment nameplate capture in energized industrial/utility switchgear rooms become a routine part of the role (NFPA 70E-qualified field walkdowns rather than desk drafting), the physical, unpredictable-environment share rises.
If firms adopt a formal 'AI output reviewer of record' step in their QA/QC procedures — the drafter signing an internal check sheet that AI-generated one-lines and cable schedules were verified against field conditions before PE seal — the role owns a consequential, documented call. Insurer-driven QA requirements for E&O coverage on AI-assisted deliverables are the mechanism to watch.
Only narrow route: some jurisdictions and utilities require certified drafters/designers for specific submittals (e.g., NICET or state electrical-designer certification for fire alarm or low-voltage plans — Florida and California already license fire alarm/low-voltage design work separately from PE seal). Expansion of such certificate-holder-must-prepare rules to broader electrical submittals would create a thin signature requirement.
The limit. No realistic route to a meaningful trust premium — buyers purchase the PE-stamped drawing set, not the drafter, and none ever asks whether a human drew it. Even with every lever above, the deliverable itself remains machine-generatable; the job survives as field verification and review attached to someone else's stamp, which caps the total well below the point where the occupation is safe.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 860 | $77,630 +1% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 720 | $83,100 +8% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 580 | $77,830 +1% |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 560 | $79,530 +3% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 480 | $68,710 -11% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 480 | $115,530 +50% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 460 | $79,160 +3% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 340 | $86,140 +12% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 480 | $115,530 +50% |
| Boulder, CO | 40 | $103,910 +35% |
| Manchester-Nashua, NH | 160 | $102,810 +34% |
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 25. 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.