Fire service officers
(watch manager and below)
Fire service officers (watch manager and below) co-ordinate and participate in firefighting activities, provide emergency services in the event of accidents or bomb alerts, and advise on fire prevention.
- Employees (UK)
- 55k
- Median annual pay
- £40,775
- Exposure score ?
- 1.7/10 Minimal 3.9/10 Low strict reading, with tools is 3.9/10 with-tools reading, strict is 1.7/10
- Wage exposure
- £381m £875m
Higher exposure than 74% 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.
A few tasks in this role are within reach of AI, mostly paperwork, scheduling and routine writing. The shape of the role stays the same, and some parts get faster.
If you are in this role
Pick the two or three most repetitive things in your week and try a model on them. Most people underestimate what Claude or ChatGPT already does with admin-shaped work. The time you get back is the gain.
Where the work usually starts.
These are the most important tasks a language model can already handle directly. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around them, so they stop eating the team's time.
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Communicate fire details to superiors, subordinates, or interagency dispatch centers, using two-way radios.
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Perform maintenance and minor repairs on firefighting equipment, including vehicles, and write and submit proposals to modify, replace, and repair equipment.
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Maintain required maps and records.
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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Assess nature and extent of fire, condition of building, danger to adjacent buildings, and water supply status to determine crew or company requirements.
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Communicate fire details to superiors, subordinates, or interagency dispatch centers, using two-way radios.
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Direct the training of firefighters, assigning of instructors to training classes, and providing of supervisors with reports on training progress and status.
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 "First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers" (33-1021.00).
What AI can already do
7 of 30 tasks, unaided
Communicate fire details to superiors, subordinates, or interagency dispatch centers, using two-way radios.
Perform maintenance and minor repairs on firefighting equipment, including vehicles, and write and submit proposals to modify, replace, and repair equipment.
Maintain required maps and records.
Recommend personnel actions related to disciplinary procedures, performance, leaves of absence, and grievances.
Perform administrative duties, such as compiling and maintaining records, completing forms, preparing reports, or composing correspondence.
Study and interpret fire safety codes to establish procedures for issuing permits to handle hazardous or flammable substances.
Maintain knowledge of fire laws and fire prevention techniques and tactics.
What still needs a person
23 of 30 tasks
Assign firefighters to jobs at strategic locations to facilitate rescue of persons and maximize application of extinguishing agents.
Provide emergency medical services as required, and perform light to heavy rescue functions at emergencies.
Assess nature and extent of fire, condition of building, danger to adjacent buildings, and water supply status to determine crew or company requirements.
Serve as a working leader of an engine, hand, helicopter, or prescribed fire crew of three or more firefighters.
Instruct and drill fire department personnel in assigned duties, including firefighting, medical care, hazardous materials response, fire prevention, and related subjects.
Maintain fire suppression equipment in good condition, checking equipment periodically to ensure that it is ready for use.
Evaluate the performance of assigned firefighting personnel.
Direct the training of firefighters, assigning of instructors to training classes, and providing of supervisors with reports on training progress and status.
Schedule employee work assignments and set work priorities.
Inspect and test new and existing fire protection systems, fire detection systems, and fire safety equipment to ensure that they are operating properly.
Monitor fire suppression expenditures to ensure that they are necessary and reasonable.
Participate in creating fire safety guidelines and evacuation schemes for nonresidential buildings.
Drive crew carriers to transport firefighters to fire sites.
Inspect stations, uniforms, equipment, or recreation areas to ensure compliance with safety standards, taking corrective action as necessary.
Evaluate fire station procedures to ensure efficiency and enforcement of departmental regulations.
Direct firefighters in station maintenance duties, and participate in these duties.
Direct investigation of cases of suspected arson, hazards, and false alarms and submit reports outlining findings.
Recommend equipment modifications or new equipment purchases.
Supervise and participate in the inspection of properties to ensure that they are in compliance with applicable fire codes, ordinances, laws, regulations, and standards.
Analyze burn conditions and results, and prepare postburn reports.
Evaluate size, location, and condition of fires.
Plan, direct, and supervise prescribed burn projects.
Recruit or hire firefighting personnel.
Tasks via O*NET "First-Line Supervisors of Firefighting and Prevention Workers" (33-1021.00).
What AI can already do
19 of 30 tasks, with tools
Assess nature and extent of fire, condition of building, danger to adjacent buildings, and water supply status to determine crew or company requirements.
Communicate fire details to superiors, subordinates, or interagency dispatch centers, using two-way radios.
Direct the training of firefighters, assigning of instructors to training classes, and providing of supervisors with reports on training progress and status.
Perform maintenance and minor repairs on firefighting equipment, including vehicles, and write and submit proposals to modify, replace, and repair equipment.
Schedule employee work assignments and set work priorities.
Inspect and test new and existing fire protection systems, fire detection systems, and fire safety equipment to ensure that they are operating properly.
Monitor fire suppression expenditures to ensure that they are necessary and reasonable.
Participate in creating fire safety guidelines and evacuation schemes for nonresidential buildings.
Maintain required maps and records.
Recommend personnel actions related to disciplinary procedures, performance, leaves of absence, and grievances.
Perform administrative duties, such as compiling and maintaining records, completing forms, preparing reports, or composing correspondence.
Study and interpret fire safety codes to establish procedures for issuing permits to handle hazardous or flammable substances.
Direct investigation of cases of suspected arson, hazards, and false alarms and submit reports outlining findings.
Recommend equipment modifications or new equipment purchases.
Supervise and participate in the inspection of properties to ensure that they are in compliance with applicable fire codes, ordinances, laws, regulations, and standards.
Maintain knowledge of fire laws and fire prevention techniques and tactics.
Analyze burn conditions and results, and prepare postburn reports.
Evaluate size, location, and condition of fires.
Recruit or hire firefighting personnel.
What still needs a person
11 of 30 tasks
Assign firefighters to jobs at strategic locations to facilitate rescue of persons and maximize application of extinguishing agents.
Provide emergency medical services as required, and perform light to heavy rescue functions at emergencies.
Serve as a working leader of an engine, hand, helicopter, or prescribed fire crew of three or more firefighters.
Instruct and drill fire department personnel in assigned duties, including firefighting, medical care, hazardous materials response, fire prevention, and related subjects.
Maintain fire suppression equipment in good condition, checking equipment periodically to ensure that it is ready for use.
Evaluate the performance of assigned firefighting personnel.
Drive crew carriers to transport firefighters to fire sites.
Inspect stations, uniforms, equipment, or recreation areas to ensure compliance with safety standards, taking corrective action as necessary.
Evaluate fire station procedures to ensure efficiency and enforcement of departmental regulations.
Direct firefighters in station maintenance duties, and participate in these duties.
Plan, direct, and supervise prescribed burn projects.
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Related occupations.
Other roles in Associate 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