EXPOSED
The front half of this job — mood boards, period research, concept renderings, sketch variations, drafting elevations in CAD/SketchUp — is exactly what image and drafting models now produce in minutes, and directors and curators are already using them for early looks. What survives is downstream and physical: walking a stage or gallery, specifying real materials and load paths, hitting a budget, and standing in the shop when a flat doesn't fit. Scored for the modal worker across theater/film sets and museum exhibits; the exhibit side has slightly more surviving fabrication and accessibility work.
Nearly all of this fall was the 2020 shock. It has been climbing back since.
Median pay $54,600 → $75,240 +10.2% 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
+2.3%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 10,630 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Exposed, but growing
AI can already do a lot of these tasks, and the BLS still expects +2.3% more of these jobs by 2034. Demand for the output is growing faster than the work is being automated away — the mechanism BLS gives for software developers, and the combination people most often misread as an error.
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.
CreatorDesignerExhibitorFood StylistSet DesignerRoom DesignerSet DecoratorEvent DesignerEvent DecoratorScenic DesignerDisplay DesignerExhibit DesignerExhibits ManagerLighting DesignerExhibit PreparatorExhibit SpecialistStage Set DesignerDisplay CoordinatorExhibit CoordinatorProjection DesignerInstallations DesignerMiniature Set DesignerStage Scenery DesignerExhibitions Coordinator
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier The concept-through-drafting half of your week — thumbnail variations, period reference boards, colored elevations, painter's elevations, model photos for the production meeting — is now generated output, while the half that holds is site survey on a raked stage, material substitution when the lauan is backordered, tech-week notes, and mount design against ADA reach ranges, which lands this at 10 rather than the 14+ a purely on-site trade would get.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You are in the shop and on the deck: measuring a proscenium that isn't square, checking sightlines from row F, riding a lift to look at a drop, walking an exhibit in mid-install with case glass on pallets and dust in the air — uncontrolled spaces on someone else's schedule, though you're specifying and supervising rather than swinging the hammer for eight hours, which is why 13 and not 17.
No licence, no signature requirement No licence exists for set or exhibit design; the technical director, the licensed structural engineer stamping the rigging or a mezzanine, and the venue's fire marshal review of flame-spread ratings are the signatures that carry legal weight, so your drawing gets approved by someone else's credential and 2 is honest.
Meaningful discretion You commit the show to a scenic budget and a build calendar with no way to unspend it — choosing a turntable over wagons, deciding an artifact can hang unvitrined, calling whether a deck will hold a full-cast dance number — decisions the TD and producer can override but that are yours to propose and defend, which is genuine discretion short of the 14+ where a wrong call is a life-safety event you personally own.
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 (10/20 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 (2/20) 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 22 of this occupation's 45 points (49%).
Embodiment (13/20) 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 62/100, still EXPOSED.
Concept-render and CAD-elevation tiers collapse into AI tooling, leaving the job as on-site fit-out: material specification against fire code (NFPA 701 flame-spread certification for scenic fabric), rigging load paths, sightline verification in the actual room, and shop supervision when built geometry deviates from drawings. This is a genuine two-tier occupation and the residual tier is the judgment tier.
Jurisdictions requiring a licensed structural engineer or registered architect to stamp temporary scenic and exhibit structures — already the practice in NYC DOB for large public assembly installations and in some state fair/expo permitting. If designers who hold PE/RA licenses become the required signatory rather than a consulting engineer downstream, the shield attaches to the role. Also: IATSE/USA829 contract language making the designer of record responsible for rigging load specification.
Museum exhibit work absorbing more mount-making, artifact-handling and ADA physical-access verification (reach ranges, tactile stations) that must be measured and adjusted in the gallery; if institutions keep pushing accessibility retrofits under the 2024 DOJ Title II web/physical rules, more of the week is in-space.
United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 contract terms restricting AI-generated design deliverables or requiring credit and consent for training on member portfolios, mirroring the 2023 WGA MBA and SAG-AFTRA AI provisions. Awards eligibility rules (Tony, Drama Desk, AAM excellence awards) conditioning nomination on human authorship would reinforce it at the prestige tier only.
Being named designer of record on permit and insurance documents for public-assembly installations, so crowd-flow, egress and artifact-safety calls are traceable to the role; carriers writing exhibit liability policies increasingly ask who specified the mount and the material.
The limit. Even with every lever, this sits in the 60s. The occupation is small (10,630) and mostly employed on short contracts where clients buy a look, not a signature; the licensure route runs through PE/RA credentials most set designers do not hold, which means the shield may attach to engineers rather than to designers. Trust premium gains concentrate in Broadway/major-museum work and do not reach regional theater, trade show, or retail display.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,870 | $106,880 +42% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 1,620 | $86,880 +15% |
| Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | 420 | $82,960 +10% |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 310 | $61,370 -18% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 290 | $109,120 +45% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 280 | — |
| Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA | 240 | $62,770 -17% |
| Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD | 220 | $80,280 +7% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 290 | $109,120 +45% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,870 | $106,880 +42% |
| Dayton-Kettering-Beavercreek, OH | 40 | $92,020 +22% |
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 45. 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.