{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/first-line-supervisors-of-security-workers/", "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": "First-Line Supervisors of Security Workers", "soc_code": "33-1091", "category": "Protective Service", "us_employment": 81480, "median_annual_wage": 55940 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 60, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 13, "embodiment": 15, "liability_shield": 8, "trust_premium": 11, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Scheduling coverage across three shifts, generating post orders, compiling incident reports and triaging hours of camera footage are all being absorbed by Trackforce/Silvertrac-type platforms and video analytics, which is why this sits at 13 rather than 17 — but the parts that keep it above the midpoint (standing a post handover, walking a perimeter at 3am with a new officer, physically separating two people in a lobby) have no software substitute.", "embodiment": "You are on-site in parking structures, loading docks, hospital ERs and construction perimeters in whatever weather, responding to alarms on foot and putting hands on people during an escort or restraint — a 15 rather than 18 only because a meaningful slice of the week is spent in a console room or office doing rosters and reports.", "liability_shield": "Most states require a guard card and many require a separate supervisor or qualified-manager registration (California's PPO qualified manager, New York's 47-hour supervisor training), so the 8 reflects a real statutory gate — but the exposure for a bad use-of-force call typically lands on the contract security firm and its insurer, not on your personal licence in the way a nurse's RN or a PI's licence is personally revocable and suable.", "trust_premium": "Client property managers and facility directors ask for you by name and officers will work a double for a supervisor they respect but walk off for one they don't — that relational hold puts it at 11, capped below 13 because the contract is with the security company and you can be swapped at a client's request without the account being lost.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide in seconds whether to detain, whether to call 911, whether an intoxicated person gets escorted or arrested, and whether to pull an officer off a post mid-shift — real discretion with legal and physical consequences, held to 13 because post orders, client escalation trees and company use-of-force policy define the outer boundaries of most of those calls before you make them." }, "rationale": "The modal security supervisor spends most of the day physically on a site — walking posts, briefing officers, responding to incidents, de-escalating confrontations, coordinating with police and building management — which robotics and language models cannot do. The paperwork layer (shift scheduling, post orders, incident report drafting, payroll and compliance logs, camera-footage review triage) is squarely automatable and is already being compressed by workforce-management software and video analytics. Most states license the officers and often the supervisor, but that shield is thin and regulatory rather than a personal-liability signature like a physician's or engineer's.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat but the span of control widens — one supervisor covering more sites with analytics doing the monitoring — so the report-writing, monitoring-desk end of the role thins while incident command and client advisory hold.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensing boards (e.g., California BSIS, New York DCJS, Texas DPS PSB) extending the existing qualified-manager/licensee model so that a named, personally licensed supervisor must sign off on use-of-force incident reports, detention/citizen's-arrest records, and armed-post assignments — with the signature attaching personal license revocation exposure. California already requires a Qualified Manager for each PPO license; making incident-level countersignature and AI-generated report attestation part of that duty is a narrow, visible rule change.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer requirements: carriers writing security-contractor E&O/general liability mandating a named supervisor of record on site for armed or crowd-control posts as a policy condition, mirroring how construction GL demands a qualified competent person. Also plausible via post-incident litigation making the supervisor's documented on-scene judgment the defensible fact.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Task-mix shift: if scheduling, report drafting and camera triage are absorbed by workforce-management and video-analytics software, the residual role concentrates into use-of-force decisions, detain/release calls, evacuation and active-threat command, and police handoff — all irreducibly ambiguous and consequential. Watch for job postings that drop administrative duties and add incident-command certification (ICS-100/200).", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Same two-tier shift: the automatable paperwork tier leaving means the measured day is de-escalation, officer discipline, training delivery, and live incident response. Task_resistance rises arithmetically even as capability improves — but note this also shrinks headcount per site, so the occupation gets more resistant and smaller at once.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Buyer-side: corporate and school-district security RFPs specifying a named human supervisor physically present per shift rather than a remote monitoring center — driven by post-incident liability and by parent/tenant pressure after high-profile failures of remote-monitored sites. Union contracts (SEIU Local 32BJ, which represents building security in NYC) bargaining supervisor-to-officer ratio floors would harden this.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Even with the licensing and buyer-side levers, this occupation is capped well below professions with true personal-signature liability: security supervision is a cost center, procurement is price-driven, and remote monitoring centers plus analytics reduce the number of supervisors needed per contract regardless of how resistant each remaining role becomes. The realistic top is roughly the mid-70s, with fewer people in it." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2021, "emp": 55450, "wage": 50240 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 59520, "wage": 48810 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 64900, "wage": 54580 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 70310, "wage": 58610 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 81480, "wage": 55940 } ], "from": 2021, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 46.9, "comparable_from": 2021, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "first-line-supervisors-of-police-and-detectives", "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 76, "median_wage": 106040, "overlap": 77, "skills_to_close": [ "Active Learning", "Learning Strategies", "Instructing", "Persuasion" ] }, { "slug": "first-line-supervisors-of-firefighting-and-prevention-workers", "title": "First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 80, "median_wage": 93530, "overlap": 70, "skills_to_close": [ "Equipment Selection", "Operation and Control", "Operations Monitoring", "Mathematics" ] }, { "slug": "transit-and-railroad-police", "title": "Transit and Railroad Police", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 90230, "overlap": 62, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }