SAFE
Riggers select and attach slings, shackles, and chokers to loads, judge center of gravity and sling angles on the fly, and signal crane operators in shipyards, on steel erection sites, and above film stages — none of that is screen work. AI can compute load charts, generate lift plans, and cross-check capacity math, but a human still has to inspect the wire rope for broken strands, rig the pick in a congested space, and call the stop. The main automatable slice is the paperwork tier: lift plan drafting, load calculation, and inspection logging.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $50,860 → $62,640 -1.5% 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
+3.2% 24,600 → 25,400 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +3.2% 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.
~2,500 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
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Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Tasks largely resist digitisation The load chart math and lift-plan paperwork are genuinely computable, but choking a turbine shell with a basket hitch in a congested engine room, feeling the sling take tension, and reading the load's drift as it clears an obstruction have no digital substitute — that's why this sits at 17 rather than mid-teens.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments Riggers work aloft on steel, in shipyard drydocks, on catwalks above film stages, and in the fall zone of suspended loads, hand-tightening shackle pins and repositioning tag lines in weather and noise — the only reason it isn't a 20 is the fraction of time spent in the shop inspecting and logging gear.
Certification preferred, not legally required Most states require no rigger licence, but ASME B30.9 sling inspection duties, OSHA 1926.1425 signal-person qualification, and NCCCO Rigger Level I/II certification are contractually mandatory on most union steel and refinery jobs — so there's a real credential gate, just not a statutory personal-liability one, hence 10 not 15.
Exists to be accountable for ambiguous calls When the sling angle looks wrong or a wire rope shows a broken strand mid-shift, the rigger calls the stop and eats the schedule delay; that go/no-go authority over a load that can kill people below is why this is 15 rather than a procedural mid-single-digit.
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 (10/20) 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 (15/20) 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 34 of this occupation's 70 points (49%).
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.
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 85/100, still SAFE.
Owner/insurer contract terms (e.g. marine and builder's-risk underwriters, or nuclear/refinery turnaround specs) requiring that any AI-generated lift plan be reviewed and signed by a certified rigger or lift director before the pick proceeds — mirroring the engineer-of-record countersignature now common on critical lifts over 75% of chart capacity.
Genuine two-tier occupation: if lift-plan drafting, load-chart math, sling-angle calculation and inspection logging are absorbed by software, the residual job is all field judgment — center-of-gravity estimation on an unmarked fabrication, wire-rope condemnation calls, congested-space rigging, stop authority. The measured task mix shifts toward the tier no model touches.
OSHA's cranes-and-derricks rule (29 CFR 1926.1404/1425) already requires a 'qualified rigger' for assembly/disassembly and workers under suspended loads, but 'qualified' is employer-designated, not licensed. A move to third-party certification of record — e.g. states adopting NCCCO Rigger Level I/II or an ASME B30.9-linked credential as a statutory requirement, the way California and several cities license crane operators — plus a named-rigger signature line on the critical-lift plan, would put a specific person's credential and personal liability on each pick.
Formal designation of a 'lift director' role with documented stop-work authority — already in ASME B30.5 and adopted in many refinery/petrochem and shipyard safety programs — assigned to the rigger rather than the superintendent, making the stop call an owned, logged decision rather than an informal one.
Narrow route only: entertainment rigging, where IATSE local agreements and venue insurance require named union riggers for overhead work above performers and audiences, and producers pay a premium for a specific crew rather than lowest bid. This does not generalize to industrial or shipyard rigging, where the buyer is a GC purchasing headcount.
The limit. Embodiment is effectively maxed at 19 and task_resistance near-ceiling; the realistic upside is concentrated in liability_shield, which is low mainly because 'qualified rigger' is an employer designation rather than a license. Even a full certification-of-record regime is a 5-8 point total move, not a transformation — and it would raise the score for certified riggers while widening the gap for the large uncertified helper tier.
| Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC | 1,350 | $64,440 +3% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,250 | $96,880 +55% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,140 | $64,430 +3% |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | 770 | $82,130 +31% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | 660 | $50,840 -19% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 620 | $103,030 +64% |
| Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard, WA | 570 | $85,300 +36% |
| Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, LA | 420 | $37,360 -40% |
| Fargo, ND-MN | 50 | $169,480 +171% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 620 | $103,030 +64% |
| Salt Lake City-Murray, UT | 270 | $97,850 +56% |
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 70. 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.