SAFE verdict contested
The core of this job is pulling lower units, replacing impellers and water pumps, chasing corroded wiring and fuel-system faults, and doing it in engine wells, bilges, and on trailers or in-water slips — physical positions no current robot handles. AI is already useful for the paper layer: interpreting diagnostic codes, pulling service-bulletin specs, writing estimates and warranty claims. There is no marine mechanic license in most states, so the moat is embodiment and customer trust, not regulation.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $41,330 → $57,550 +11.4% 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
+6% 26,200 → 27,800 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +6% more of these jobs by 2034. Note that safe does not mean well paid — several of the fastest-growing resistant occupations are among the lowest paid on the register.
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.
~2,600 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
MechanicBoat RiggerBoat TesterBoat MechanicMarine MechanicMarine TechnicianMotorboat MechanicService TechnicianBoat Motor MechanicOutboard TechnicianOutboard Motor TesterMarine Diesel MechanicOutboard Motor MechanicCertified Marine MechanicMarine Machinery MechanicMarine Propulsion TechnicianBoat Outboard Engine MechanicExperimental Outboard Motors MechanicOutboard Motors Experimental MechanicMarine Service Technician (Marine Service Tech)
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Diagnostic software can read a Mercury SmartCraft fault code, but nothing automates dropping a lower unit off a 250 HP outboard, pressure-testing a gearcase, splitting a powerhead to replace a scored piston, or tracing a green-corroded harness behind a dash — the fault codes only narrow where a human still has to go with a wrench, which is why this sits at 17 rather than a full 20.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work bent over a transom into an engine well, upside down in a bilge over standing oily water, on a trailer in a gravel lot, or in a slip with the boat moving under you and salt spray on everything — uncontrolled position, uncontrolled footing, uncontrolled weather, which is the ceiling case for this dimension.
Certification preferred, not legally required Most states license no marine mechanic at all; what you may hold is manufacturer certification — Mercury, Yamaha, Volvo Penta training, ABYC electrical — which the dealer needs to bill warranty work but which no statute requires and which does not put your name personally on the repair, so 5 reflects credentialing that gates the good jobs, not legal exposure.
Meaningful discretion Calling repower versus rebuild on a saltwater-corroded block, deciding whether an intermittent stall is the trigger, the stator, or water in the fuel, and signing off that a boat is safe to leave the dock with its bilge blower and fuel lines intact are calls made on incomplete evidence with someone's life on the water downstream — high discretion, though the failure mode is usually a tow, not a fatality, which is why 13 and not 17.
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 (17/20 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 (5/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (12/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (13/20) 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 30 of this occupation's 67 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.
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 83/100, still SAFE.
Growth of high-value electric and hybrid marine propulsion plus complex NMEA-2000 integrated electronics, where OEM programs (Mercury, Yamaha, Volvo Penta) restrict diagnostic tool and firmware access to factory-trained named technicians — buyers then pay for the authorized human specifically, not just labor hours.
State adoption of a marine technician licensing/certification requirement tied to fuel-system and CO-hazard work — Florida and Michigan boating-safety bodies have discussed this, and ABYC certification is already written into some insurer and marina-yard requirements. If a surveyor/insurer regime requires a named ABYC-certified technician to sign off on fuel, propane, and electrical repairs for the vessel to stay insurable, the shield goes from informal to personal.
Task-mix shift: as code-reading and estimate writing move to AI, the remaining call is the ambiguous one — is this hull-side corrosion a fix or a condemn, is this engine safe to send offshore. If yards formalize a 'sea-trial release' or pre-delivery seaworthiness sign-off attached to a named technician, the consequential call becomes an owned one.
EPA/Coast Guard enforcement of emissions-component and ethanol fuel-line standards requiring a certified installer signature on repowers and fuel-system replacements, similar to the existing recreational marine engine emissions certification chain.
The limit. Already 67 with embodiment maxed; the realistic upside is a licensure/insurer regime, and marine trades have resisted state licensing for decades, so the shield may stay informal indefinitely. Ceiling around 80.
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 1,670 | $59,490 +3% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 940 | $62,070 +8% |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 610 | $54,470 -5% |
| Providence-Warwick, RI-MA | 500 | $59,170 +3% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 490 | $72,790 +26% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 460 | $60,910 +6% |
| Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI | 450 | $47,920 -17% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 420 | $64,140 +11% |
| Urban Honolulu, HI | 100 | $78,040 +36% |
| Barnstable Town, MA | 180 | $75,420 +31% |
| Burlington-South Burlington, VT | 30 | $73,080 +27% |
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 67. 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.