EXPOSED
Glaziers cut, handle, and set heavy plate glass, curtain wall units, storefront framing, and skylights on scaffolds, lifts, and half-finished buildings — none of which robotics handles at cost today, and glass is unforgiving of error. AI can eat the desk-side layer: takeoffs from drawings, cut optimization, quoting, and material scheduling. What it cannot do is field-measure an out-of-square opening, shim and set a 400-pound insulated unit, or diagnose a leaking curtain wall joint on the 14th floor.
Headcount grew steadily across the period.
Median pay $44,630 → $57,080 +2.3% 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
+3.3% 60,500 → 62,500 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +3.3% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 65/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
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.
~5,100 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
GlazerGlazierGlassmanGlass FitterGlass SetterLead ApplierField GlazierGlass GlazierUnion GlazierGlass InserterGlass MechanicGlazier WorkerWindow GlazierGlass InstallerArt Glass SetterMirror InstallerWindow AssemblerWindow InstallerCommercial GlazierWindows ConsultantResidential GlazierStained Glass JoinerArchitectural GlazierPlate Glass Installer
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Field-measuring a masonry opening that's 3/8" out of square, setting glazing tape and shims, wet-sealing with silicone tooled by hand, and hanging curtain wall anchors off embed plates are all tactile, one-off judgments — only the takeoff, cut-optimization and shop-order layer detaches cleanly to software, which is why this sits at 16 and not a full 18-20.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work on swing stages, boom lifts and scaffold in wind and rain, carrying laminated units with suction cups up unfinished floors with no permanent guardrails — there is no controlled cell version of setting a 400-pound IGU into a punched opening, so this is the ceiling of the scale.
Certification preferred, not legally required No state licenses glaziers as individuals; you may hold an OSHA 30, a scaffold or aerial-lift card, and in some markets a union journeyman ticket, but the contractor's license, the architect's seal on the glazing spec and the manufacturer's warranty absorb the legal exposure when a unit fails — hence 7 rather than the 11+ an electrician gets.
Meaningful discretion You decide whether a racked opening gets shimmed or sent back to the framer, whether a leak is a failed setting block or a bad head flashing detail, and whether a lift is safe to fly a unit in that wind — real calls with real money and real fall exposure, but bounded by the shop drawings, ASTM/AAMA install specs and the super's direction above you.
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 (7/20) 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 (12/20) 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 29 of this occupation's 65 points (45%).
Embodiment (20/20) 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.
Electricians 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 81/100 — SAFE.
Growth of forensic facade work driven by mandatory periodic facade inspection ordinances (NYC FISP, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia post-2022): the glazier who diagnoses which joint, gasket, or anchor is the water path and calls the repair scope owns a consequential ambiguous call with litigation attached.
Safety-glazing and blast/hurricane-impact compliance sign-off: Florida HVHZ and Miami-Dade NOA product approvals already require installation per NOA; if code officials extend the required installer affidavit (already common for impact-window retrofits in FL permitting) to all glazed openings statewide, an individual installer's name attaches to each permit.
Task-mix shift: this trade genuinely has two tiers, and if AI takeoff/cut-optimization/quoting tools (Paradigm, FeneVision, Bidtracer-style estimating) absorb the desk layer, the residual job is field measurement of out-of-square openings, shimming, and leak diagnosis — the fraction of the day AI cannot touch goes up even with no capability change in the field.
Spec-mandated certification becoming a condition of bidding: AGMT (Architectural Glass and Metal Technician) certification via NGA/FCA already appears in some public curtain-wall specs, and if a state or large owner (e.g., a state DOT/GSA-style facade spec, or NYC DOB requiring a certified installer signature on curtain-wall special inspection reports under the Local Law 11/FISP regime) makes a named certified installer personally attest to weatherproofing and anchorage, the shield rises materially.
Landmark and historic restoration glazing — hand-set putty glazing, restoration of leaded and rolled cylinder glass under Secretary of the Interior Standards / SHPO review — where the buyer is explicitly paying for named human craft. Real but a small share of the occupation.
The limit. Embodiment is already maxed at 20 and cannot rise. Most of the realistic headroom is liability and forensic-judgment framing; the bulk of glaziers do repetitive commercial storefront and residential replacement work where no trust premium is plausible, so the occupation's practical ceiling is roughly the high 70s.
Adjudication: scored twice independently and the runs disagreed. The change held under every rounding method, so the average was published.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 3,030 | $69,480 +22% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 2,330 | $44,430 -22% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 2,000 | $57,170 +0% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 1,980 | $49,450 -13% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,980 | $64,160 +12% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 1,380 | $63,310 +11% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,370 | $48,340 -15% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 1,260 | $61,530 +8% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 780 | $107,610 +89% |
| Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA | 70 | $91,870 +61% |
| Springfield, MA | 90 | $83,420 +46% |
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 65. 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.