SAFE
The core of this job — picking a lock on a stranger's front door at 11pm, rekeying cylinders, drilling and manipulating a safe dial, cutting and programming keys, installing exit devices to fire code — happens with hands in tight, non-standardized physical spaces that no current robot handles. AI erodes the back office (dispatch, quoting, call intake, invoicing) and the diagnostic lookup that used to be tribal knowledge, not the bench work. The real disruption is technological rather than AI: smart locks, electronic access control, and dealer-controlled automotive keys shift the trade toward electronics and manufacturer credentials, and locksmiths who stay purely mechanical will see their addressable work shrink.
This fall is concentrated in 2020 and has not recovered since.
Median pay $41,940 → $51,320 -2.1% 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
-8.3%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 15,040 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Hard to automate, but shrinking anyway
The work resists current AI, yet the BLS projects -8.3% by 2034. Whatever is shrinking this occupation, the evidence does not point to automation — demand, demographics, offshoring and industry decline all shrink jobs that no machine could do.
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.
KeysmithKey MakerLockmakerLocksmithLock ExpertLock FitterLock SetterSafe ExpertSafe MechanicSafe InstallerVault MechanicVault InstallerTime Lock ExpertForensic LocksmithSafe Service MechanicRoad Service LocksmithVault Service MechanicKey Technician (Key Tech)Commercial Vault AssociateLock Technician (Lock Tech)Safe Technician (Safe Tech)Vault Technician (Vault Tech)Safe and Vault Service MechanicCML (Certified Master Locksmith)
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Manipulating a Sargent & Greenleaf dial by feel, drilling a hardplate to scope the wheel pack, or rekeying a Schlage cylinder on a door that's been sagging for twenty years are all touch-and-feedback tasks with no digital substitute — the 15 rather than 18 reflects that key cutting, transponder programming, and code lookup are increasingly machine-driven, and quoting/dispatch is already software.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments Nearly every billable hour is on someone else's doorstep, in a parking lot, or kneeling at a floor safe — unmapped hardware, weather, cramped closets and door frames out of plumb — which is as uncontrolled as environments get; it's 19 not 20 only because a shop bench handles some of the key duplication and safe servicing.
Certification preferred, not legally required State licensing is real but patchy — roughly fifteen states plus many municipalities require a locksmith licence with fingerprinting and background checks, and ALOA/SAVTA certifications carry weight with insurers and safe manufacturers — but there's no nationwide credential, no personal liability for a signed design, and in a dozen states you can legally hang a shingle tomorrow.
Meaningful discretion Deciding whether to drill or manipulate a safe, whether an exit device install satisfies NFPA 101 egress requirements, and whether the person claiming to own the car actually does are calls you make alone on site with real consequences — but most jobs run to known procedures for known hardware, which caps it well below the ambiguity a structural engineer faces.
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 (15/20 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 (10/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (13/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (11/20) 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 34 of this occupation's 68 points (50%).
Embodiment (19/20) 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 86/100, still SAFE.
Enforcement of NFPA 80 / NFPA 101 annual fire door and exit-device inspection as a signed, named-inspector record — AHJs and Joint Commission surveyors already cite hospitals for missing fire-door inspection documentation, and DHI's FDAI certification exists to fill it. If more jurisdictions demand a credentialed signature per opening, recurring inspection work becomes a legally gated deliverable rather than discretionary maintenance.
Tightening of NASTF Secure Data Release System rules so that vehicle key origination and immobilizer programming require a registered Vehicle Security Professional whose personal registry ID is logged against each code pull — an audit trail that already exists and that OEMs and Right-to-Repair implementation (Massachusetts data law, MOU with OEMs) could harden further.
Task-mix shift as the routine tier leaves: self-service key duplication kiosks (KeyMe, Minute Key) and hardware-store cutting absorb flat-key duplication, and AI absorbs quoting/dispatch. What remains is safe manipulation, damaged-cylinder work, master-key system design, and access-control integration/troubleshooting — the tier where the day's work is diagnosis in a non-standard physical situation.
Consumer-protection pressure against the fake-locksmith call-center model — FTC and state AG actions, plus Google Local Services Ads background-check screening for locksmiths — makes verified, licensed, insured human identity the thing the buyer is explicitly paying for on an emergency lockout. Landlord and insurer requirements naming a bonded locksmith would extend this.
Extension of mandatory state locksmith licensing (currently in ~15 states — TX, NJ, IL, NC, AL, LA — with fingerprinting and bonding) to more states, plus rules making the licensee personally liable for unauthorized entry, key control records, and re-key chain of custody. A concrete watch item: state bills that also cover 'electronic access control installer' so smart-lock work falls inside the licensed scope rather than outside it.
Growth of forensic locksmithing as evidentiary work — IAIL-certified examiners determining whether a lock was picked, bumped, or the loss was staged, for insurance denial and criminal cases. If insurers formalize forensic examination as a standard step on high-value burglary claims, the role owns a consequential call under ambiguity and testifies to it.
Institutional key-control and credential-management contracts (schools, hospitals, multifamily REITs) that name a responsible locksmith of record for master-key hierarchy design and revocation after staff termination — a decision with direct security consequences under incomplete information, increasingly written into district safety policies post-Uvalde door-security reviews.
The limit. Embodiment is effectively maxed at 19 and cannot be raised. The larger threat to this occupation is not AI but hardware substitution: keyless entry, OEM-controlled automotive credentials, and app-managed multifamily access shrink the addressable mechanical work regardless of how high liability and trust scores go. A locksmith trade fully gated by licensing could still contract if the locks stop needing hands.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 960 | $61,830 +20% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 760 | $57,320 +12% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 400 | $51,470 +0% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 390 | $47,370 -8% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 360 | $37,250 -27% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 340 | $65,370 +27% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 320 | $58,110 +13% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 300 | $60,720 +18% |
| New Haven, CT | 30 | $78,160 +52% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 90 | $74,320 +45% |
| Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT | 40 | $70,980 +38% |
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 68. 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.