EXPOSED
Carrying bundles of shingles up a ladder, tearing off old roofing, cleaning debris, and holding materials for a roofer are tasks no language model touches and no current robot performs on a steep, hot, irregular roof deck. The exposure here is not AI replacing the work — it's that the role is unlicensed, low-discretion, and easily filled, so wages and bargaining power stay thin while the roofer above you keeps the credential and the liability. Score reflects the modal helper, not a helper already running crews.
This fall is concentrated in 2020 and has not recovered since.
Median pay $32,110 → $44,160 +10.0% 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
+5.7% 5,200 → 5,500 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +5.7% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 52/100 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.
~600 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
Roofer HelperRoofing HelperRooftop LoaderRoofer AssistantRoofer ApprenticeSlate Roofer HelperHot Tar Roofer HelperShingles Roofer HelperIndustrial Roofer HelperCommercial Roofing HelperResidential Roofer HelperTerra Cotta Roofer HelperCommercial Roofing Laborer
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Hauling 80-pound shingle bundles up an extension ladder, prying off felt and nails with a spud bar, and sweeping magnets over a lawn for stray fasteners are physical sequences with no digital analogue at all — the 19 rather than 14 reflects that even the paperwork-adjacent parts of the job (measuring squares, staging material) get done by the journeyman, so there is almost nothing here a model could touch.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments A 6:12 pitch in July with hot asphalt underfoot, changing wind, skylight openings, and rotten decking you find by feeling it flex is the definition of an uncontrolled environment, and nothing about the work happens off the roof — this is the ceiling of the scale, not merely near it.
No licence, no signature requirement No state licenses roofing helpers; the contractor's license, the OSHA 1926.501 fall-protection duty, and the workmanship warranty all attach to the employer, so the only thing you personally carry is the injury risk — the 3 rather than 0 acknowledges OSHA 10 cards and fall-protection training being commonly required on commercial jobs.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs Nail spacing, courses, flashing laps, and tear-off sequence are all called by the roofer you are handing material to, and your calls are limited to things like where to stage the bundle or when the tarp needs to go down before rain — real but low-stakes, which is a 5 rather than a 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 (19/20 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 (5/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (5/20) 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 52 points (25%).
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.
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 61/100, still EXPOSED.
Being pulled inside a credentialed structure: OSHA's proposed federal heat injury and illness prevention standard (NPRM published July 2024) requires a designated heat safety coordinator/monitor on outdoor sites, and OSHA fall protection already requires a named 'competent person' for roof work. If a state adopts a rule that the ground/roof crew must include a separately certified person holding a card that can be suspended — e.g., Washington or Oregon outdoor heat rules extended with individual certification, or a state roofing contractor license (as in Florida, California) requiring documented registered apprentices at fixed ratios — the helper slot becomes a named, revocable credential rather than an interchangeable body.
Formal designation of the helper as fall-protection spotter, anchor-point inspector, or heat-illness buddy under a written site safety plan, with the designation named in the job hazard analysis that an insurer or general contractor audits. This already happens on large commercial jobs and union work (United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers apprenticeship standards); the change to watch is builder's-risk or workers' comp carriers making the named-spotter role a condition of coverage on residential re-roofs.
The limit. Capped near 65. Trust premium has no realistic route: homeowners buy a roof and a warranty from the contractor, and no buyer has ever specified a human helper. Any gain must come from liability and named-role safety duties, and both attach to the crew, not the individual, so they raise the floor for wages more than they raise displacement resistance.
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 330 | $41,690 -6% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 240 | $39,850 -10% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 150 | $38,090 -14% |
| Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL | 140 | $39,620 -10% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 130 | $46,780 +6% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 100 | $58,090 +32% |
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | 90 | $44,380 +0% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 90 | $47,090 +7% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 100 | $58,090 +32% |
| Salinas, CA | 30 | $55,470 +26% |
| Fresno, CA | 50 | $51,170 +16% |
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 52. 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.