Job Check
Maintenance and Repair Workers, General
Perform work involving the skills of two or more maintenance or craft occupations to keep machines, mechanical equipment, or the structure of a building in repair. Duties may involve pipe fitting; HVAC maintenance; insulating; welding; machining; carpentry; repairing electrical or mechanical equipment; installing, aligning, and balancing new equipment; and repairing buildings, floors, or stairs.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Perform routine maintenance, such as inspecting drives, motors, or belts, checking fluid levels, replacing filters, or doing other preventive maintenance actions.Mostly human for now
- 02Inspect, operate, or test machinery or equipment to diagnose machine malfunctions.Mostly human for now
- 03Adjust functional parts of devices or control instruments, using hand tools, levels, plumb bobs, or straightedges.Mostly human for now
- 04Repair machines, equipment, or structures, using tools such as hammers, hoists, saws, drills, wrenches, or equipment such as precision measuring instruments or electrical or electronic testing devices.Mostly human for now
- 05Order parts, supplies, or equipment from catalogs or suppliers.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Diagnose mechanical problems and determine how to correct them, checking blueprints, repair manuals, or parts catalogs, as necessary.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Design new equipment to aid in the repair or maintenance of machines, mechanical equipment, or building structures.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Assemble, install, or repair wiring, electrical or electronic components, pipe systems, plumbing, machinery, or equipment.Mostly human for now
- 09Clean or lubricate shafts, bearings, gears, or other parts of machinery.Mostly human for now
- 10Estimate costs to repair machinery, equipment, or building structures.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
14%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 21% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 60% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Perform routine maintenance, such as inspecting drives, motors, or belts, checking fluid levels, replacing filters, or doing other preventive maintenance actions.
- Inspect, operate, or test machinery or equipment to diagnose machine malfunctions.
- Adjust functional parts of devices or control instruments, using hand tools, levels, plumb bobs, or straightedges.