Survives Durable: at least one of the four tests holds, and the evidence is direct.
Industrial machinery mechanics
When the automation breaks, someone has to take it apart — which is a growing job.
- Horizon
- 2025–2035
- Pay
- $64,520
- Protection from automation
- Well protected · our reading
The counter-intuitive consequence of automating a factory is that it needs more people who can fix the automation. McKinsey’s skill analysis puts electrical work and quality assurance among the complementary skills employers are asking for more of as AI fluency rises.McKinsey 2025
This is the general pattern behind trades on this list: they are not untouched by AI, they are downstream of it.
What holds it up
- Every automation programme creates maintenance work
- Fault diagnosis on real metal, in situ, under production pressure
- 446,900 people already do this — 79,700 more are projected
What threatens it
- Predictive maintenance removes some scheduled-inspection work
- Employer-funded training is the bottleneck, not demand
Official projection