Agricultural equipment operators

Drive and control equipment to support agricultural activities such as tilling soil; planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops; feeding and herding livestock; or removing animal waste. May perform tasks such as crop baling or hay bucking. May operate stationary equipment to perform post-harvest tasks such as husking, shelling, threshing, and ginning.

AI Resistance Index 98 of 99

Among the most resilient careers: more resilient than 98% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is very low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it low), and US jobs are projected to change by +8.6% by 2035, faster than average.

AI struggles with much of this work, and US employers are expected to hire more people into it than average.

Median pay (2025): $41,730
Job growth to 2035: +8.6%
Openings a year: 10,100
People doing it (2025): 66,900
Usual route in: No formal credential, then moderate on-the-job training

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Where people already use AI for this work

Set up equipment
Prepare mixtures or solutions
Communicate with others about operational plans or activities

From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).

Work AI rarely helps with

Operate agricultural or forestry equipment
Maintain tools or equipment
Load products, materials, or equipment for transportation or further processing

What the work looks like

Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.

From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.

What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects

More of these jobs, as more sophisticated agricultural equipment is increasingly used for farming and related operations, resulting in a greater need for the workers who operate this equipment and less of a need for workers to do tasks by hand.
More of these jobs, as the expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) and IoT connected devices utilized in agricultural operations increase the demand for agricultural equipment operators to operate and monitor these devices and to make informed decisions using the data collected.

Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook

Helpers--installation, maintenance, and repair workersHuman edge, growing, Index 99, +5.3%
Medical equipment preparersHuman edge, growing, Index 99, +10.8%
Exercise trainers and group fitness instructorsHuman edge, growing, Index 99, +7.3%
Solar photovoltaic installersHuman edge, growing, Index 99, +36.5%

Also known as: Equipment Operator, Farm Equipment Operator, Loader Operator, Rake Operator, Baler Operator, Cutter Operator, Hay Baler, Packing Tractor Machine Operator.

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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.