SAFE
Tearing off old shingles, setting underlayment, flashing chimneys and valleys, and walking a pitched wet deck at 30 feet are tasks no current robot performs at cost. The screen-based slice of the job — takeoffs, material estimates, bidding, insurance claim documentation — is genuinely automatable and AI already drafts it from drone imagery. Licensure is contractor-level and state-dependent rather than personal, so the moat here is physical, not regulatory.
Roughly flat across the period, with year-to-year wobble.
Median pay $42,100 → $55,440 +5.3% 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
+5.9%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 135,490 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Hard to automate, and growing
The work resists current AI and the BLS projects +5.9% 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.
~12,700 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
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Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Stripping three layers of asphalt down to rotten decking, cutting and bending step flashing to fit a chimney that isn't square, and hand-nailing a hip ridge on a 9:12 pitch are sequential judgment-plus-force tasks with no fixed geometry — the only slice a machine touches is the estimate, which is why this sits at 19 and not 20.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work at height on a surface that changes friction with dew, on a deck that may give way under you, in 140°F attic-radiated heat with a nail gun, torch, or hot kettle — there is no controlled-environment version of this job at all.
Certification preferred, not legally required Most states license the roofing contractor or the business entity, not the individual on the roof, so the crew member's name appears on no permit and no warranty; the 8 reflects that OSHA fall-protection rules and manufacturer certifications (GAF Master Elite, torch-down endorsements) do impose real personal training requirements that an unqualified hand can't fake.
Meaningful discretion Calls like whether sheathing is sound enough to nail into, how to detail a valley where two different pitches meet, or whether to tarp and stop when the wind picks up are yours in the moment with a leak or a fall as the consequence — but shingle exposure, nailing patterns, and fastener counts are dictated by manufacturer spec and code, which caps the discretion at 12.
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 (19/20 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 (8/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (11/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (12/20) 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 31 of this occupation's 70 points (44%).
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 85/100, still SAFE.
States moving roofing from generic contractor registration to a personal, individually-licensed 'roofing contractor' credential with named-installer signoff on the permit — Florida's Div. I/II roofing license and Minnesota's residential roofer license are existing models; a further step would be code amendments (IRC adoption cycles) requiring a licensed roofer's signed inspection certificate before wind-mitigation or hail insurance discounts are granted, as Florida's uniform mitigation verification (OIR-B1-1802) form already does for inspectors
Manufacturer certification tiers (GAF Master Elite, Owens Corning Platinum) that condition extended warranties on named certified installers — buyers already pay premiums for these; expansion tied to warranty transferability at home sale would deepen it
Task-mix shift: takeoffs, bids, and claim packets automating away leaves the day as tear-off, flashing, and deck judgment. Score is already 19, so headroom is nil — this protects rather than raises
Structural-call ownership growing as decking rot, ventilation, and hail-vs-wear determinations become the contested core of claims; if state adjuster rules or court precedent treat the roofer's on-deck damage determination as the controlling opinion over AI drone assessments (litigation over EagleView/Verisk imagery-based denials is already live), the accountable call sits with the roofer
Insurer underwriting rules that void wind/hail coverage unless installation is documented by a licensed roofer attesting to manufacturer-spec fastening — carriers in FL, TX, OK are already tightening roof-age and installation-proof requirements; if attestation becomes personally liable rather than firm-level, the shield hardens
The limit. task_resistance and embodiment are effectively maxed; the only real headroom is liability_shield, where roofing is unusually weak for a trade with this much consequence. Realistic ceiling around 80-83.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 5,480 | $63,560 +15% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 5,290 | $48,030 -13% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 3,900 | $82,090 +48% |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 3,380 | $47,170 -15% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 3,100 | $76,400 +38% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 2,970 | $64,090 +16% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 2,700 | $47,760 -14% |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 2,650 | $47,300 -15% |
| Worcester, MA | 350 | $105,270 +90% |
| Trenton-Princeton, NJ | 140 | $82,100 +48% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 3,900 | $82,090 +48% |
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.