AI exposure: Sheet Metal Workers
Fabricate, assemble, install, and repair sheet metal products and equipment, such as ducts, control boxes, drainpipes, and furnace casings. Work may involve any of the following: setting up and operating fabricating machines to cut, bend, and straighten sheet metal; shaping metal over anvils, blocks, or forms using hammer; operating soldering and welding equipment to join sheet metal parts; or inspecting, assembling, and smoothing seams and joints of burred surfaces. Includes sheet metal duct installers who install prefabricated sheet metal ducts used for heating, air conditioning, or other purposes.
Reading this score
computedSheet Metal Workers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 6.8% of weighted task load, rank 850 of 923. 86.0% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 19 tasks it averages 2.55 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Select gauges or types of sheet metal or nonmetallic material, according to product..., at 40.0%. The least is Finish parts, at 0.0%. A gap of 40.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within construction and extraction occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 61 roles in the group is 5.0%, and only 24 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 19 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 15 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.61 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.55 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.34 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.13 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.39 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.42 | 0-3 |
Task by task
19 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Select gauges or types of sheet metal or nonmetallic material, according to product specifications. | 40.0% | 35.0% | 25.0% | 3.70 | exposed |
| Determine project requirements, such as scope, assembly sequences, or required methods or materials, using blueprints, drawings, or written or verbal instructions. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.87 | exposed |
| Convert blueprints into shop drawings to be followed in the construction or assembly of sheet metal products. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.74 | exposed |
| Verify that heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are designed, installed, and calibrated in accordance with green certification standards, such as those of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). | 10.0% | 40.0% | 50.0% | 3.60 | assisted |
| Perform building commissioning activities by completing mechanical inspections of a building's water, lighting, or heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 3.39 | untouched |
| Inspect individual parts, assemblies, or installations, using measuring instruments, such as calipers, scales, or micrometers. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Hire, train, or supervise new employees or apprentices. | 2.9% | 9.6% | 87.5% | 4.04 | untouched |
| Maintain equipment, making repairs or modifications when necessary. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.30 | untouched |
| Fabricate ducts for high efficiency heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to maximize efficiency of systems. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.21 | untouched |
| Fasten seams or joints together with welds, bolts, cement, rivets, solder, caulks, metal drive clips, or bonds to assemble components into products or to repair sheet metal items. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Transport prefabricated parts to construction sites for assembly and installation. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Install assemblies, such as flashing, pipes, tubes, heating and air conditioning ducts, furnace casings, rain gutters, or downspouts in supportive frameworks. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
| Lay out, measure, and mark dimensions and reference lines on material, such as roofing panels, using calculators, scribes, dividers, squares, or rulers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.00 | untouched |
| Fabricate or alter parts at construction sites, using shears, hammers, punches, or drills. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.87 | untouched |
| Maneuver completed roofing units into position for installation. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.87 | untouched |
| Shape metal material over anvils, blocks, or other forms, using hand tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.63 | untouched |
| Trim, file, grind, deburr, buff, or smooth surfaces, seams, or joints of assembled parts, using hand tools or portable power tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.57 | untouched |
| Fasten roof panel edges or machine-made moldings to structures by nailing or welding. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.01 | untouched |
| Finish parts, using hacksaws or hand, rotary, or squaring shears. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.89 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 1 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.