{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/nuclear-technicians/", "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": "Nuclear Technicians", "soc_code": "19-4051", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 6470, "median_annual_wage": 110240 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 50, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 9, "trust_premium": 4, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Roughly half the shift is field work a machine can't yet do — smear surveys behind a valve gallery, whole-body counter setups, source checks on portal monitors, sampling primary coolant through a hot-lab hood — but the other half is dose trending, RWP writeups, log entries and effluent report generation that software already handles, which is what pulls this to 11 rather than the 15+ a purely hands-on trade would get.", "embodiment": "You work inside radiological control areas in anti-Cs, respirator or airline hood, in refuel outage heat and cramped containment penetrations where geometry, background and contamination change hour to hour — that's uncontrolled by any robotics standard — and it lands at 14 rather than higher because a meaningful share of hours are back in the count room, at the RP desk, or at a workstation.", "liability_shield": "You hold real quals — ANSI/ANS-3.1 health physics tech certification, site-specific requals, sometimes NRC-recognized RCT cards — and you sign surveys and RWPs, but the licence that legally matters belongs to the plant and the certified Radiation Protection Manager or licensed operator above you, so at 9 the credential gates who does the work without making you personally the licensed accountable party.", "trust_premium": "Nobody requests a technician by name; a survey record, a count sheet or a dose report is interchangeable between you and the tech on the opposite shift, and the 4 reflects only the working rapport with maintenance and outage crews who trust your briefings enough to enter an area without arguing.", "judgment_accountability": "Procedures and ALARA plans script most of the day, but you make live calls that matter — stop-work when a dose rate climbs mid-job, whether an alarm is real or a source-check artifact, whether a smear result means a contamination event or lab error, what stay-time to give a crew — and 12 rather than 15 because those calls escalate fast to RP supervision and the control room rather than ending with you." }, "rationale": "Nuclear technicians spend real hours physically inside plants and labs — swiping contamination surveys, drawing coolant and effluent samples, calibrating and staging radiation detection instruments, escorting workers through controlled areas — and none of that is close to being roboticized in a hardened, high-consequence environment. What is exposed is the paperwork half of the job: trending dose data, filling radiological work permits, generating shift logs, writing routine survey and effluent reports, and flagging out-of-band readings, all of which software already does or will do. Certification (ANSI/ANS-3.1, NRR health physics tech quals, site-specific quals) plus a heavy NRC/utility procedural culture slows change more than the technology does; the shield is regulatory, not physical, and could be rewritten.", "outlook": "Employment stays small and roughly flat as reporting and dose-trending work collapses into software, while the field-survey, sampling, and outage-coverage tier holds and shifts toward decommissioning and new SMR sites.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "An NRC rule or license-condition change (e.g., in revision of Regulatory Guide 8.2/8.8 implementation or 10 CFR 20 recordkeeping requirements) that names a qualified/certified health physics technician as the individual who must review and sign radiological survey records, RWPs, and dose-assignment entries generated by software — making the certification the legal signature rather than a staffing convention. Watch also for ANSI/ANS-3.1 revision language on attestation for machine-generated radiological records.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "SMR/advanced-reactor licensing (NuScale, X-energy, Kairos applications) settling minimum radiation-protection staffing per unit as an explicit license condition rather than leaving it to owner discretion — the same fight now running over minimum licensed operator staffing per 10 CFR 50.54(m) exemption requests. If techs get a floor written in, the shield hardens; if SMR staffing exemptions are granted broadly, it erodes instead.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal, individually held stop-work / suspend-entry authority for the RP technician written into the site radiological protection program and collective bargaining agreements (UWUA/IBEW utility locals), so the on-scene tech owns the containment-entry or dose-extension call rather than relaying a recommendation to an engineer.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if trending, log generation, effluent report drafting and out-of-band flagging are absorbed by software, the residual day is unplanned-work ALARA planning, hot-particle and smearable-contamination judgment, instrument response troubleshooting in high-field areas, and job coverage — work with no clean digital substitute. Task-mix shift alone raises this without any rule change.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Decommissioning workload growth (Indian Point, Palisades restart work, Diablo Canyon lifetime extension surveys) shifting the national task mix toward MARSSIM final status surveys and characterization — dense, non-repeating, in-field measurement in degraded and unmapped geometries, which is the least roboticizable part of the occupation.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to trust_premium: the buyer is a utility or national lab, not a person choosing a human, and procurement optimizes cost per survey. Also note the two liability levers point the same way as the SMR staffing-exemption fight — the same NRC process that could write a floor is currently being asked to waive one, so the shield is genuinely bidirectional here." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 6850, "wage": 80370 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 7230, "wage": 79140 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 6420, "wage": 82080 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 6160, "wage": 84190 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 5360, "wage": 99340 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 5880, "wage": 100420 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 5400, "wage": 101740 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 5990, "wage": 104240 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 6470, "wage": 110240 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -5.5, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "nuclear-power-reactor-operators", "title": "Nuclear Power Reactor Operators", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 70, "median_wage": 122890, "overlap": 82, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Complex Problem Solving", "Management of Personnel Resources" ] }, { "slug": "electrical-and-electronics-repairers-powerhouse-substation-and-relay", "title": "Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 68, "median_wage": 103020, "overlap": 69, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Equipment Maintenance", "Equipment Selection", "Operations Analysis" ] }, { "slug": "ship-engineers", "title": "Ship Engineers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 109530, "overlap": 66, "skills_to_close": [ "Repairing", "Installation", "Equipment Maintenance", "Equipment Selection" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }