EXPOSED
The production core of this job — CAD site plans, planting schedules, grading and drainage layouts, rendering, spec writing, zoning and code research — is exactly the text-and-screen work generative design tools are eating fastest, and junior drafting hours are the first to go. What holds is licensure: most states require a licensed landscape architect to seal construction documents, and that seal carries personal liability for stormwater, ADA circulation, and slope stability failures. Site walks, construction observation, contractor coordination, and public-meeting advocacy in front of hostile neighbors are also not automating; the modal worker survives by moving up into that tier rather than out of the profession.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $69,360 → $79,870 -7.9% 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
+3.5% 21,800 → 22,600 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +3.5% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 53/100 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.
~1,700 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
PlannerLand PlannerPark PlannerSite PlannerExterior DesignerLandscape PlannerProject ArchitectLandscape DesignerLandscape EngineerLandscape ArchitectGolf Course DesignerEnvironmental PlannerGolf Course ArchitectEnvironmental DesignerIndoor Landscape ArchitectLandscape Design AssistantOutdoor Landscape ArchitectProject Landscape ArchitectSustainable Landscape ArchitectLandscape Architectural DesignerLandscape Architect Project ManagerProfessional Landscape Architect (PLA)AP BD+C (Accredited Professional in Building Design and Construction)
Holding it up: liability shield . Weakest point: embodiment .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier Generative layout tools already produce credible planting palettes, grading iterations, and stormwater volume checks from a site survey, and the hours you actually bill — CAD sheet sets, plant schedules, irrigation details, LEED/SITES documentation, municipal code cross-checks — are the most tokenizable parts of the practice, which is why this sits at 9 rather than mid-teens: what resists is not the drawing but the walking, the punch list, and the planning-commission hearing.
Some physical or field component You are on site for topographic verification, soil percolation checks, tree protection zones, and construction observation walks where the contractor set the swale two feet off — real boots-in-mud work, but it is intermittent visits to a site someone else is building, not the daily uncontrolled-environment exposure of the crews you inspect, which is what separates a 9 from a 15.
Licensed human required and personally liable Roughly 49 states license landscape architects under practice or title acts, and your seal on grading and drainage sheets makes you personally answerable when a retention basin fails or an accessible route exceeds 5% running slope — the 13 rather than 18 reflects that much of the profession's work (master planning, design concepts, planting design) is legally sealable by architects and civil engineers too, so the statutory monopoly is narrower than a PE's or surveyor's.
Meaningful discretion You make calls no code answers: whether a mature oak can survive the proposed cut, how much slope to accept before it becomes a maintenance liability, which stormwater approach will actually pass the reviewing engineer — genuine discretion with consequences years out, held at 12 because the governing constraints (zoning setbacks, ADA, local stormwater ordinances, plant hardiness) are written down and reviewed by others before anything is built.
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 (9/20 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 (13/20) 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 35 of this occupation's 53 points (66%).
Embodiment (9/20) 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.
Civil Engineers EXPOSED
Chief Executives SAFE
Construction Managers 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 65/100, still EXPOSED.
Municipal codes that make the LA the accountable party for performance outcomes rather than drawing compliance — tree canopy ordinances with survivability bonds, Chesapeake Bay / Washington State stormwater manuals requiring certified designer sign-off on infiltration assumptions, or wildfire defensible-space and slope-stability review roles in California WUI zones where the LA owns the ambiguous call on soils and vegetation risk.
Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If generative tools absorb base plans, planting schedules, quantity takeoffs and rendering, the residual day becomes site walks, construction observation and punch lists, contractor RFIs, agency negotiation, and public hearings before hostile neighbors — work current models cannot do. The score rises only as measured against the remaining job, not because AI got worse.
Landscape architect seal requirements strengthened rather than eroded: CLARB/ASLA-backed practice acts closing the 'title act only' gap in states like Illinois and Massachusetts, plus explicit state rules that stormwater/green-infrastructure permit submittals (e.g., MS4 post-construction plans, state SWPPP sign-off) require a sealed LA or PE stamp on the planting/bioretention design. Watch also for board rules stating AI-generated construction documents do not satisfy 'responsible charge' and must be independently reviewed by the sealing licensee — the same language boards of architecture and engineering (e.g., NCARB, NCEES model rules) are now drafting.
Contract language — AIA/ASLA standard agreements or public owner requirements — mandating minimum on-site construction observation visits and licensee-signed field reports for planting establishment, subgrade, and drainage inspection, rather than photo-based remote review. Some state DOT and park agency contracts already specify visit counts.
The limit. Trust premium is the honest omission: clients buy landscape architecture through developers, agencies, and prime architects on fee and schedule, and there is no visible market segment paying extra specifically for a human-drawn site plan. Also, the levers above mostly protect the licensed, senior tier; nothing plausible restores junior drafting hours, which is where the headcount is.
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 850 | $66,830 -16% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 850 | $89,350 +12% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 630 | $103,670 +30% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 610 | $119,730 +50% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 600 | $76,730 -4% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 570 | $95,760 +20% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 560 | $84,270 +6% |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 470 | $92,970 +16% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 70 | $119,910 +50% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 610 | $119,730 +50% |
| Birmingham, AL | 70 | $109,010 +36% |
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 53. 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.