Career Explorer Construction and trades
Human edge, growing
Earth drillers, except oil and gas
Operate a variety of drills such as rotary, churn, and pneumatic to tap subsurface water and salt deposits, to remove core samples during mineral exploration or soil testing, and to facilitate the use of explosives in mining or construction. Includes horizontal and earth boring machine operators.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 74% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is low (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it low), and US jobs are projected to change by +3.6% by 2035, faster than average. The work leans on physical dexterity.
AI struggles with much of this work, and US employers are expected to hire more people into it than average.
- Median pay (2025)
- $60,190
- Job growth to 2035
- +3.6%
- Openings a year
- 1,400
- People doing it (2025)
- 19,500
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then long on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Select materials or equipment for operations or projects
- Determine operational methods or procedures
- Read documents or materials to inform work processes
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Operate construction or excavation equipment
- Operate transportation equipment or vehicles
- Maintain operational records
What the work looks like
- Fabricate well casings.
- Operate controls to stabilize machines and to position and align drills.
- Start, stop, and control drilling speed of machines and insertion of casings into holes.
- Pour water into wells, or pump water or slush into wells to cool drill bits and to remove drillings.
- Regulate air pressure, rotary speed, and downward pressure, according to the type of rock or concrete being drilled.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as automated drilling equipment is used to increase accuracy and safety in coal mining.
- Fewer of these jobs, as automation of some drilling activities increases the productivity of earth drillers in metal mining operations.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Helpers--pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfittersHuman edge, steady, Index 85, +2.4%
- Construction laborersHuman edge, growing, Index 93, +7.3%
- Extraction workers, all otherHuman edge, steady, Index 89, +3.4%
- Cement masons and concrete finishersHuman edge, steady, Index 78, +1.6%
Also known as: Blast Hole Driller, Drill Operator, Driller, Well Driller, Diamond Driller, Hard Rock Drill Operator, Highwall Drill Operator, Rock Drill 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.