Groundsmen and greenkeepers
Groundsmen and greenkeepers cut and lay turf and maintain areas for golf courses and other sports grounds.
- Employees (UK)
- 38k
- Median annual pay
- £27,519
- Exposure score ?
- 0.6/10 Minimal 2.2/10 Low strict reading, with tools is 2.2/10 with-tools reading, strict is 0.6/10
- Wage exposure
- £63m £230m
Higher exposure than 31% 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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Maintain required records, such as personnel information or project records.
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Prepare or maintain required records, such as work activity or personnel reports.
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Perform administrative duties, such as authorizing leaves or processing time sheets.
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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Schedule work for crews, depending on work priorities, crew or equipment availability, or weather conditions.
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Monitor project activities to ensure that instructions are followed, deadlines are met, and schedules are maintained.
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Negotiate with customers regarding fees for landscaping, lawn service, or groundskeeping work.
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 Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers" (37-1012.00).
What AI can already do
4 of 28 tasks, unaided
Maintain required records, such as personnel information or project records.
Prepare or maintain required records, such as work activity or personnel reports.
Perform administrative duties, such as authorizing leaves or processing time sheets.
Review contracts or work assignments to determine service, machine, or workforce requirements for jobs.
What still needs a person
24 of 28 tasks
Establish and enforce operating procedures and work standards that will ensure adequate performance and personnel safety.
Schedule work for crews, depending on work priorities, crew or equipment availability, or weather conditions.
Tour grounds, such as parks, botanical gardens, cemeteries, or golf courses, to inspect conditions of plants and soil.
Monitor project activities to ensure that instructions are followed, deadlines are met, and schedules are maintained.
Direct activities of workers who perform duties, such as landscaping, cultivating lawns, or pruning trees and shrubs.
Inspect completed work to ensure conformance to specifications, standards, and contract requirements.
Plant or maintain vegetation through activities such as mulching, fertilizing, watering, mowing, or pruning.
Negotiate with customers regarding fees for landscaping, lawn service, or groundskeeping work.
Direct or perform mixing or application of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, or fungicides.
Train workers in tasks such as transplanting or pruning trees or shrubs, finishing cement, using equipment, or caring for turf.
Prepare service estimates based on labor, material, and machine costs and maintain budgets for individual projects.
Identify diseases or pests affecting landscaping and order appropriate treatments.
Inventory supplies of tools, equipment, or materials to ensure that sufficient supplies are available and items are in usable condition.
Perform personnel-related activities, such as hiring workers, evaluating staff performance, or taking disciplinary actions when performance problems occur.
Provide workers with assistance in performing duties as necessary to meet deadlines.
Investigate work-related complaints to verify problems and to determine responses.
Confer with other supervisors to coordinate work activities with those of other departments or units.
Direct or assist workers engaged in the maintenance or repair of equipment, such as power tools or motorized equipment.
Order the performance of corrective work when problems occur and recommend procedural changes to avoid such problems.
Confer with managers or landscape architects to develop plans or schedules for landscaping maintenance or improvement.
Recommend changes in working conditions or equipment used to increase crew efficiency.
Answer inquiries from current or prospective customers regarding methods, materials, or price ranges.
Install or maintain landscaped areas, performing tasks such as removing snow, pouring cement curbs, or repairing sidewalks.
Design or supervise the installation of sprinkler systems, calculating water pressure, or valve and pipe coverage needs.
Tasks via O*NET "First-Line Supervisors of Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers" (37-1012.00).
What AI can already do
16 of 28 tasks, with tools
Schedule work for crews, depending on work priorities, crew or equipment availability, or weather conditions.
Monitor project activities to ensure that instructions are followed, deadlines are met, and schedules are maintained.
Negotiate with customers regarding fees for landscaping, lawn service, or groundskeeping work.
Prepare service estimates based on labor, material, and machine costs and maintain budgets for individual projects.
Identify diseases or pests affecting landscaping and order appropriate treatments.
Maintain required records, such as personnel information or project records.
Perform personnel-related activities, such as hiring workers, evaluating staff performance, or taking disciplinary actions when performance problems occur.
Prepare or maintain required records, such as work activity or personnel reports.
Perform administrative duties, such as authorizing leaves or processing time sheets.
Investigate work-related complaints to verify problems and to determine responses.
Review contracts or work assignments to determine service, machine, or workforce requirements for jobs.
Order the performance of corrective work when problems occur and recommend procedural changes to avoid such problems.
Confer with managers or landscape architects to develop plans or schedules for landscaping maintenance or improvement.
Recommend changes in working conditions or equipment used to increase crew efficiency.
Answer inquiries from current or prospective customers regarding methods, materials, or price ranges.
Design or supervise the installation of sprinkler systems, calculating water pressure, or valve and pipe coverage needs.
What still needs a person
12 of 28 tasks
Establish and enforce operating procedures and work standards that will ensure adequate performance and personnel safety.
Tour grounds, such as parks, botanical gardens, cemeteries, or golf courses, to inspect conditions of plants and soil.
Direct activities of workers who perform duties, such as landscaping, cultivating lawns, or pruning trees and shrubs.
Inspect completed work to ensure conformance to specifications, standards, and contract requirements.
Plant or maintain vegetation through activities such as mulching, fertilizing, watering, mowing, or pruning.
Direct or perform mixing or application of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, or fungicides.
Train workers in tasks such as transplanting or pruning trees or shrubs, finishing cement, using equipment, or caring for turf.
Inventory supplies of tools, equipment, or materials to ensure that sufficient supplies are available and items are in usable condition.
Provide workers with assistance in performing duties as necessary to meet deadlines.
Confer with other supervisors to coordinate work activities with those of other departments or units.
Direct or assist workers engaged in the maintenance or repair of equipment, such as power tools or motorized equipment.
Install or maintain landscaped areas, performing tasks such as removing snow, pouring cement curbs, or repairing sidewalks.
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Related occupations.
Other roles in Skilled trades 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