Career Explorer Transport and logistics
Human edge, growing
Driver/sales workers
Drive truck or other vehicle over established routes or within an established territory and sell or deliver goods, such as food products, including restaurant take-out items, or pick up or deliver items such as commercial laundry. May also take orders, collect payment, or stock merchandise at point of delivery.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 70% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it moderate), and US jobs are projected to change by +7.9% 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)
- $38,770
- Job growth to 2035
- +7.9%
- Openings a year
- 45,500
- People doing it (2025)
- 443,000
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Provide information to guests, clients, or customers
- Read documents or materials to inform work processes
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Maintain sales or financial records
- Operate transportation equipment or vehicles
- Collect fares or payments
What the work looks like
- Drive trucks to deliver such items as food, medical supplies, or newspapers.
- Arrange merchandise and sales promotion displays or issue sales promotion materials to customers.
- Collect coins from vending machines, refill machines, and remove aged merchandise.
- Inform regular customers of new products or services and price changes.
- Record sales or delivery information on daily sales or delivery record.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- More of these jobs, as restaurants increasingly add food delivery to their services and some restaurants choose to employ their own drivers to handle deliveries.
- More of these jobs, as grocery stores increasingly add food delivery to their services and some grocery stores choose to employ their own drivers to handle deliveries.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Light truck driversHuman edge, growing, Index 75, +6.3%
- Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, handHuman edge, steady, Index 72, +1.8%
- Food batchmakersHuman edge, growing, Index 85, +6.5%
- Agricultural workers, all otherHuman edge, growing, Index 83, +3.8%
Also known as: Driver, Driver Salesman, Route Driver, Route Salesman, Delivery Man, Pizza Delivery Driver, Route Delivery Driver, Route Sales Driver.
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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.