Archivists
conservators and curators
Archivists, conservators and curators collect, appraise and preserve collections of recorded and other material of historical interest.
- Employees (UK)
- 9k
- Median annual pay
- £33,096
- Exposure score ?
- 1.2/10 Minimal 9.0/10 Very high strict reading, with tools is 9.0/10 with-tools reading, strict is 1.2/10
- Wage exposure
- £36m £268m
Higher exposure than 61% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means.
Most of this role's work is still hard for AI: physical presence, practised skill, judgement in context and direct care, the things that do not turn into text.
If you are in this role
Nothing here is under pressure today, but the frontier moves. Learn enough to direct AI at the paperwork around the job. People in hands-on roles who can do that become unusually useful inside their organisations.
Almost every routine task in this role is within reach of today's models. Roles like this are being rebuilt, usually not by disappearing but by one person using AI to produce what several did.
If you are in this role
Be the person doing the rebuilding. People who learn to run this kind of work with AI become very valuable, and the ones who wait tend to have the change made for them.
Where the work usually starts.
This role's strict reading is low because its top tasks are judgement, not drafting. The three highest-stakes tasks below are still usually where the work starts. Switch to With tools to see what AI plus the right context can take on.
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Plan and organize the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of collections and related materials, including the selection of exhibition themes and designs, and develop or install exhibit materials.
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Develop and maintain an institution's registration, cataloging, and basic record-keeping systems, using computer databases.
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Plan and conduct special research projects in area of interest or expertise.
These are the most important tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. The first wins usually come from building workflows around them. That is the difference between a model that could do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
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Plan and organize the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of collections and related materials, including the selection of exhibition themes and designs, and develop or install exhibit materials.
-
Develop and maintain an institution's registration, cataloging, and basic record-keeping systems, using computer databases.
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Plan and conduct special research projects in area of interest or expertise.
Every role has three or four places like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days.
Every task in the role.
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can do unaided and what still needs a person. Importance is O*NET's 1 to 5 rating of how central each task is.
Tasks via O*NET "Curators" (25-4012.00).
What AI can already do
2 of 15 tasks, unaided
Develop and maintain an institution's registration, cataloging, and basic record-keeping systems, using computer databases.
Write and review grant proposals, journal articles, institutional reports, and publicity materials.
What still needs a person
13 of 15 tasks
Plan and organize the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of collections and related materials, including the selection of exhibition themes and designs, and develop or install exhibit materials.
Plan and conduct special research projects in area of interest or expertise.
Provide information from the institution's holdings to other curators and to the public.
Negotiate and authorize purchase, sale, exchange, or loan of collections.
Study, examine, and test acquisitions to authenticate their origin, composition, history, and to assess their current value.
Inspect premises to assess the need for repairs and to ensure that climate and pest control issues are addressed.
Design, organize, or conduct tours, workshops, and instructional or educational sessions to acquaint individuals with an institution's facilities and materials.
Attend meetings, conventions, and civic events to promote use of institution's services, to seek financing, and to maintain community alliances.
Train and supervise curatorial, fiscal, technical, research, and clerical staff, as well as volunteers or interns.
Confer with the board of directors to formulate and interpret policies, to determine budget requirements, and to plan overall operations.
Arrange insurance coverage for objects on loan or for special exhibits and recommend changes in coverage for the entire collection.
Schedule events and organize details, including refreshment, entertainment, decorations, and the collection of any fees.
Establish specifications for reproductions and oversee their manufacture or select items from commercially available replica sources.
Tasks via O*NET "Curators" (25-4012.00).
What AI can already do
13 of 15 tasks, with tools
Plan and organize the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of collections and related materials, including the selection of exhibition themes and designs, and develop or install exhibit materials.
Develop and maintain an institution's registration, cataloging, and basic record-keeping systems, using computer databases.
Plan and conduct special research projects in area of interest or expertise.
Provide information from the institution's holdings to other curators and to the public.
Negotiate and authorize purchase, sale, exchange, or loan of collections.
Study, examine, and test acquisitions to authenticate their origin, composition, history, and to assess their current value.
Inspect premises to assess the need for repairs and to ensure that climate and pest control issues are addressed.
Write and review grant proposals, journal articles, institutional reports, and publicity materials.
Design, organize, or conduct tours, workshops, and instructional or educational sessions to acquaint individuals with an institution's facilities and materials.
Confer with the board of directors to formulate and interpret policies, to determine budget requirements, and to plan overall operations.
Arrange insurance coverage for objects on loan or for special exhibits and recommend changes in coverage for the entire collection.
Schedule events and organize details, including refreshment, entertainment, decorations, and the collection of any fees.
Establish specifications for reproductions and oversee their manufacture or select items from commercially available replica sources.
What still needs a person
2 of 15 tasks
Attend meetings, conventions, and civic events to promote use of institution's services, to seek financing, and to maintain community alliances.
Train and supervise curatorial, fiscal, technical, research, and clerical staff, as well as volunteers or interns.
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Related occupations.
Other roles in Professional occupations, and roles close by exposure.
What it means for your sector.
This role's score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 task labels, weighted by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 through ISCO-08 (the ONS coding index) and US SOC 2010 (the BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional, which covers employees only.
Back to the mapMethodologySources (PDF)Built 29 April 2026
Pictures
- "Census pantograph and 1930s keypunches" by U.S. Census Bureau employees, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Shepard Barclay, St. Louis lawyer, in his office" by Missouri Historical Society via DPLA, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Accountant's Office LCCN2016824374" by National Photo Company Collection, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Employment service in Oulu in the spring 1931" by Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons