SAFE
The core of this job — cutting into a wall to find the leak, threading and soldering pipe in a crawlspace, setting fixtures, pressure-testing a system, diagnosing why a boiler loop is short-cycling — happens in cramped, non-standard, wet physical environments that no current robot handles. AI can eat the paperwork tier: estimates, permit forms, code lookups, invoicing, dispatch scheduling. Journeyman/master licensure in nearly every state, plus liability for backflow, gas, and medical-gas work, adds a legal moat that would require statutory change to erode.
Dipped in 2020, then grew past where it started.
Median pay $55,160 → $63,800 -7.5% 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
+4.5% 504,500 → 527,200 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +4.5% 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.
~44,000 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
FitterTinnerPlumberGasfitterInstallerPipefitterGas PlumberPipe FitterPipe WelderSteamfitterMeter SetterDrain CleanerGreen PlumberGas Pipe LayerHeat ExchangerHydrant SetterMarine PlumberSteam Trap ManValve RepairerWater MechanicGas Main FitterPiping DesignerService PlumberSolar Installer
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Every core duty is unrepeatable geometry — chasing a drain slope of 1/4" per foot through existing joists, cutting out a corroded closet flange, dry-fitting DWV in a wall that isn't plumb — so there is no fixed sequence to encode, which is why this sits at 18 rather than a mid-band trade whose fabrication happens on a shop bench.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work on your back in a 30-inch crawlspace, in trenches, on roofs at vent terminations, with live gas, sewage, and 200°F water: the environment is not just physical but hazardous and unmapped, which is the definition of the top of the band and leaves nothing to deduct for.
Licensed human required and personally liable Journeyman and master licensure with documented apprenticeship hours is statutory in nearly every state, and backflow-prevention certification and medical-gas (NFPA 99/ASSE 6010) brazing endorsements attach your name to the test report — the 14 rather than 18 reflects that much residential repair work is performed by apprentices under a master's licence rather than by a personally-liable signer on every job.
Exists to be accountable for ambiguous calls When you smell gas at a meter, decide whether a 60-year-old cast-iron stack gets patched or replaced, or judge that a hospital's medical-gas zone valve must be shut before a code-required purge, you make an irreversible life-safety call alone in the building with no supervisor to escalate to — the consequence set (asphyxiation, scalding, contaminated potable water) is what puts this at the ceiling.
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 (18/20 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 (14/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (14/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (20/20) 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 48 of this occupation's 86 points (56%).
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 95/100, still SAFE.
Expansion of mandatory licensed-plumber sign-off into areas currently done by general contractors or handymen — e.g. states adopting cross-connection/backflow assembly tester certification requirements (ASSE 5110) for all commercial and multifamily buildings on a recurring annual test cycle, or medical-gas installer certification (NFPA 99 / ASSE 6010) extended to outpatient and dental facilities. Also: state adoption of PFAS/lead service-line replacement rules (EPA Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, 2024, with 2027 inventory and replacement deadlines) that require a licensed plumber to certify material verification at each service connection.
Task-mix shift as the estimating/permitting/dispatch tier is absorbed by AI back-office tools: the remaining billable day concentrates on diagnosis and non-standard retrofit — heat-pump water heater and hydronic retrofit into existing housing stock, where each job is a one-off. Driven by IRA 25C/25D heat-pump incentives and state electrification codes pushing retrofit volume rather than new-build repetition.
Warranty and insurer structure: homeowner insurers or manufacturers voiding coverage on water-damage claims and equipment warranties unless installation was performed and documented by a licensed contractor — already common in tankless water heater and boiler warranty terms. If carriers tighten this into explicit proof-of-licensed-install requirements after the rise in water-damage loss ratios, the buyer is paying for the license, not the labor.
The limit. Already at 86 with embodiment and judgment_accountability maxed; realistic headroom is a few points in liability_shield and trust_premium only. The scored risk here was never displacement of the physical work — it is wage compression if AI-run dispatch platforms commoditize lead generation and set prices, which this register does not measure.
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 21,040 | $78,610 +23% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 15,690 | $71,110 +11% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 12,750 | $103,380 +62% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 11,980 | $61,250 -4% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 10,980 | $61,300 -4% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 9,420 | $71,860 +13% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 9,270 | $63,750 +0% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 9,200 | $96,760 +52% |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | 3,830 | $107,560 +69% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 12,750 | $103,380 +62% |
| Bellingham, WA | 540 | $102,750 +61% |
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 86. 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.