EXPOSED
The work is crawling under coaches, pulling water heaters and absorption fridges, chasing 12V/120V shorts through wall cavities, resealing roofs, and pressure-testing LP lines — none of which a language model or today's robots can touch. What AI does erode is the paperwork layer: diagnostic lookups, warranty claim drafting, parts identification, and customer estimate write-ups that currently pad the billable day. There is no license requirement in most states (RVIA/RVTAA certification is voluntary, though LP gas work is regulated in some jurisdictions), so the moat is physical rather than legal.
Headcount grew steadily across the period.
Median pay $38,570 → $52,000 +7.9% 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
+11.5% 19,500 → 21,700 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +11.5% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 60/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
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.
~2,800 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
Custom Van ConverterHitch Technician (Hitch Tech)Repair Technician (Repair Tech)Service Technician (Service Tech)Vehicle Technician (Vehicle Tech)Mobile Van Technician (Mobile Van Tech)Motor Home Technician (Motor Home Tech)ATV Tech (All-Terrain Vehicle Technician)RV Tech (Recreational Vehicle Technician)RV Mechanic (Recreational Vehicle Mechanic)RV Repairer (Recreational Vehicle Repairer)RV Servicer (Recreational Vehicle Servicer)Global Vehicle Technician (Global Vehicle Tech)RV Body Mechanic (Recreational Vehicle Body Mechanic)RV Repair Technician (Recreational Vehicle Repair Technician)RV Service Technician (Recreational Vehicle Service Technician)Certified RV Technician (Certified Recreational Vehicle Technician)Mobile Service RV Technician (Mobile Service Recreational Vehicle Technician)RVDA Master Certified RV Technician (Recreational Vehicle Dealer Association Master Certified Recreational Vehicle Technician)
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Diagnosing why a slide-out room racks out of square, tracing a delamination back to a failed sidewall seam, or finding the one crimped butt-connector behind a dinette panel are tasks where the information you need does not exist until you physically open the wall — a 16 rather than 18 because the front half of your day (VIN lookup, service manual reference, warranty pre-authorization, estimate writing) is already being absorbed by software.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments Every hour is spent on a creeper under a chassis, on a ladder resealing a Dicor lap seam, kneeling in a wet bay pulling a Dometic absorption unit, or working inside a 95-degree coach with no shore power — a 19 because no two rig layouts are the same and the workspace is a customer's vehicle in a gravel lot, not a fixture on a line.
Certification preferred, not legally required Nothing you hand back requires your signature under a state license in most jurisdictions; RVIA/RVTAA certification gets you a better hourly rate and warranty-authorized status with manufacturers, not legal standing — the 5 rather than 0 reflects LP-gas fitting and pressure-test rules that in some states do require a licensed gas fitter, and the fact that a bad propane test is one of the few things that can put your name in a liability chain.
Meaningful discretion You decide whether a soft floor is a $400 patch or a total subfloor replacement, whether a roof gets resealed or reskinned, and whether to condemn a fridge cooling unit on ammonia smell alone — an 11 because those calls carry real money and real safety weight, but manufacturer service bulletins, warranty schedules, and LP-test pass/fail thresholds set the boundaries you work inside.
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 (16/20 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 (9/20) 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 25 of this occupation's 60 points (42%).
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.
Riggers SAFE
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 77/100 — SAFE.
Growth of high-value lithium/inverter and 400V-adjacent EV-motorhome retrofits, where the technician owns the go/no-go call on thermal runaway risk and chassis grounding with no manufacturer-blessed procedure to hide behind; already visible in aftermarket Battle Born/Victron conversions and early eRV platforms
Mobile-tech direct-to-owner brands (RV Mobile Service networks, NRVIA-certified inspectors hired by buyers pre-purchase) where the customer is explicitly paying for an independent human's eyes against dealer service departments — the pre-purchase RV inspection market already prices this
Task-mix shift: if AI absorbs the diagnostic lookup, warranty claim drafting and estimate writing that currently pad the day, what remains is the two-tier job's upper tier — water-intrusion root-cause tracing and intermittent short chasing in sealed cavities, which is genuinely undocumented per-unit work
State adoption of mandatory LP-gas appliance technician licensing covering RV installations — several states (e.g., Massachusetts, Michigan propane codes, and NFPA 1192/58 adoption cycles) already require certified propane handlers; if a state fire marshal rule required a licensed technician to personally sign the LP pressure-test and appliance-conversion record on every RV service order, the signature becomes a legally required human act with personal liability
Insurer or campground-association requirement that RV LP and 120V systems carry a dated inspection certificate signed by an RVIA/RVTAA-certified technician before coverage or long-term site rental — parallels the marina practice of requiring ABYC-certified electrical surveys
The limit. The embodiment score is already near maximum and cannot rise meaningfully; the realistic headroom is almost entirely in liability_shield, and only in states that pull RV LP and electrical work under existing trade licensing. Absent that, the occupation stays a physical moat with no legal one, and the ceiling is roughly 70.
| Elkhart-Goshen, IN | 690 | $50,860 -2% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 580 | $49,440 -5% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 410 | $56,980 +10% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 360 | $51,490 -1% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 260 | $57,290 +10% |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 250 | $59,030 +14% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 240 | $52,300 +1% |
| Boise City, ID | 200 | $49,990 -4% |
| Vallejo, CA | 30 | $75,550 +45% |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA | 90 | $72,380 +39% |
| Jacksonville, FL | 180 | $71,980 +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 60. 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.