Career Explorer Construction and trades
Human edge, steady
Paving, surfacing, and tamping equipment operators
Operate equipment used for applying concrete, asphalt, or other materials to road beds, parking lots, or airport runways and taxiways or for tamping gravel, dirt, or other materials. Includes concrete and asphalt paving machine operators, form tampers, tamping machine operators, and stone spreader operators.
In the middle of the pack: more resilient than 58% 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 -0.9% by 2035, expected to shrink.
AI struggles with much of this work. Hiring is expected to grow slower than average, or to shrink.
- Median pay (2025)
- $53,340
- Job growth to 2035
- -0.9%
- Openings a year
- 3,100
- People doing it (2025)
- 42,300
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then moderate on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Set up equipment
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Operate construction or excavation equipment
- Perform general construction or extraction activities
- Direct construction or extraction activities
What the work looks like
- Start machine, engage clutch, and push and move levers to guide machine along forms or guidelines and to control the operation of machine attachments.
- Fill tanks, hoppers, or machines with paving materials.
- Control paving machines to push dump trucks and to maintain a constant flow of asphalt or other material into hoppers or screeds.
- Observe distribution of paving material to adjust machine settings or material flow, and indicate low spots for workers to add material.
- Coordinate truck dumping.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as new equipment and paving materials allow operators to lay more road materials.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
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- PaperhangersHuman edge, growing, Index 86, +4.3%
Also known as: Equipment Operator (EO), Paver Operator, Roller Operator, Screed Operator, Asphalt Paver Operator, Asphalt Paving Machine Operator, Asphalt Raker, Asphalt Roller 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.