{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/locksmiths-and-safe-repairers/",
  "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": "Locksmiths and Safe Repairers",
    "soc_code": "49-9094",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 15040,
    "median_annual_wage": 51320
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 68,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 10,
    "trust_premium": 13,
    "judgment_accountability": 11
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "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.",
    "embodiment": "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.",
    "liability_shield": "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.",
    "trust_premium": "You are being handed keys to a house, a jewelry store safe, or a master key system, so repeat commercial accounts, property managers and locksmith-of-record relationships stick for years on trust alone; it stops short of 17+ because a large share of the work is one-time emergency lockouts where the customer picks whoever answers and shows up fastest.",
    "judgment_accountability": "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."
  },
  "rationale": "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.",
  "outlook": "Employment stays roughly flat but the skill mix flips: mechanical-only locksmiths get squeezed by cheap smart locks and DIY rekey kits, while those credentialed on electronic access control, automotive immobilizers, and safes see rising rates.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "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.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "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."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 17500,
        "wage": 40680
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 16970,
        "wage": 41450
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 17010,
        "wage": 41940
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 16180,
        "wage": 43690
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 15380,
        "wage": 46910
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 15240,
        "wage": 47400
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 14790,
        "wage": 48380
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 15550,
        "wage": 50490
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 15040,
        "wage": 51320
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -14.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}