{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/surveying-and-mapping-technicians/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Surveying and Mapping Technicians",
    "soc_code": "17-3031",
    "category": "Engineering",
    "us_employment": 58010,
    "median_annual_wage": 54240
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 39,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 9,
    "embodiment": 14,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 5,
    "judgment_accountability": 7
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "The field half — chaining through brush to recover a rebar-and-cap monument, setting grade stakes on a cut slope, holding the rod where GPS loses fix under canopy — still needs a person on site, but the office half (traverse reduction, point-cloud registration, breaklines and contours in Civil 3D) is exactly the repetitive work robotic total stations, drone flight-planning software, and automated feature extraction already do, which is what puts this at 9 rather than mid-teens.",
    "embodiment": "A 14 reflects that a typical day is spent on active construction sites, road right-of-way, and raw parcels — walking uneven terrain hauling a tripod and data collector, dealing with traffic, weather, ticks, and locked gates — with only the CAD reduction happening at a desk, so the environment is uncontrolled but the crew isn't doing structural or confined-space work that would push it higher.",
    "liability_shield": "State surveying statutes license the PLS who seals the plat; the technician's field notes and CAD drafting carry no legal weight on their own, and while some hold NSPS certified survey technician credentials, no jurisdiction requires it to run a rod or a scanner, hence a 4 rather than zero.",
    "trust_premium": "The client hires the survey firm and knows the licensed surveyor's name, not the technician's; you may see the same site super for months and get called back because your stakes hold, but the deliverable is an anonymous sealed drawing, which caps this at 5.",
    "judgment_accountability": "There is genuine call-making in the field — deciding a found pipe is the original corner rather than a fence post, choosing where to set control so the traverse closes, flagging that the deed call doesn't match the occupation line — but the boundary determination itself goes up to the PLS, so the discretion is procedural and reversible, landing at 7 rather than low teens."
  },
  "rationale": "The modal worker splits time between field data collection with GPS/total stations and office work reducing that data in CAD/GIS — and the office half is being eaten by automated point-cloud processing, drone photogrammetry pipelines, and AI-assisted feature extraction from imagery. Field work still requires a body holding a rod on uneven ground, locating monuments, and setting stakes, which is why this isn't COOKED, but crew sizes are shrinking as one operator plus a drone or scanner replaces a three-person party. The technician holds no license and doesn't sign the plat; the licensed surveyor above them owns the liability, so there's no regulatory moat protecting this rung.",
  "outlook": "Headcount drifts down through the 2030s as drones, scanners, and automated processing shrink field crews and gut the drafting side, while the licensed-surveyor and construction-staking tiers stay in demand.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift within the existing job: once point-cloud registration, breakline extraction and drafting cleanup are fully automated, the residual day is monument recovery from ambiguous record evidence (old deeds, fence lines, occupation lines) and construction staking against conflicting plan sets. This occupation genuinely has a routine CAD tier and a boundary-evidence tier; the score rises only for the survivors doing the second tier, and headcount falls at the same time.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Growth of subsurface utility engineering work under ASCE 38-22 quality levels: Quality Level A requires physical exposure (vacuum excavation) and direct measurement of the utility, and QL-B requires walking geophysical designation on site. State DOT contracts (e.g., FDOT, TxDOT SUE specifications) already mandate ASCE 38 levels on design surveys, which pins a body to the dirt in a way drone imagery cannot substitute for.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State board rules that name the field crew, not just the sealing surveyor. Watch for licensing-board rule changes requiring that the person who recovered each monument and made each measurement be identified in the record of survey, plus minimum direct-supervision ratios capping how many drone/scanner-derived deliverables one licensee may seal per period. NCEES model-law discussion of 'responsible charge' when data is machine-collected is the venue where this would appear. Also watch state adoption of a Certified Survey Technician (NSPS CST) requirement in DOT prequalification.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Field notes are already admissible evidence in boundary litigation. If firms and insurers formalize a 'party chief of record' who signs field notes and monument-recovery decisions — driven by professional-liability carriers pricing boundary-dispute claims and demanding documented human sign-off on machine-derived positions — the ambiguity calls become attributably owned rather than absorbed upward by the licensee.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a trust premium: buyers of survey deliverables pay for the licensed surveyor's seal and for schedule, never for a human technician specifically. The structural cap on this occupation is that the license sits one rung above it; every liability lever listed works only if a board or an insurer chooses to reach down and name the technician, and the cheaper institutional response is always to concentrate more sealing authority in fewer licensees running more automation."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 51890,
        "wage": 43340
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 52300,
        "wage": 44380
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 53030,
        "wage": 45010
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 53370,
        "wage": 46200
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 56070,
        "wage": 46910
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 56580,
        "wage": 47180
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 56050,
        "wage": 48940
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 56720,
        "wage": 51940
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 58010,
        "wage": 54240
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 11.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "surveyors",
      "title": "Surveyors",
      "verdict": "SAFE",
      "risk_resistance": 72,
      "median_wage": 75440,
      "overlap": 53,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Science",
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Mathematics",
        "Equipment Selection"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}