UK AI Exposure · Skilled trades occupations
Other skilled trades n.e.c.
Job holders in this unit group engrave jewellery and stoneware, make artificial hairpieces, charge fireworks and munitions with explosive material, make lampshades, wickerwork, toys, dolls, models, candles, artificial flowers, other fancy goods, make patterns for moulds for metal castings, make and tune musical instruments, craft precious metals and stones, and perform other hand craft occupations not elsewhere classified in minor group 544: Other skilled trades.
- Employees (UK)
- 12k
- Median annual pay
- £26,800
- Exposure score ?
- 0.3/10 Minimal 4.3/10 Moderate strict reading · with tools is 4.3/10 with-tools reading · strict is 0.3/10
- Wage exposure
- £10m £138m
Higher exposure than 20% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
Most of this role's work is still genuinely hard for AI to do. Physical presence, bodily skill, high-context judgment, direct human care - the things that don't translate to text.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You're not in the firing line today. But the frontier moves. Build enough AI fluency now that you can direct it for the parts of your work that could benefit. People in unexposed roles who understand AI become unusually valuable inside their organisations.
A meaningful slice of the task inventory is AI-reachable - the drafting, summarising, research and analysis parts especially. This role is at the point where the people who learn to direct AI well pull ahead of the people who don't.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
Treat AI as a colleague you manage, not a tool you use. Identify the tasks where you'd describe the work to a capable junior - those are the tasks AI can do for you now. Spend your time on the judgment calls and the relationships instead.
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
This role's strict reading is low because its top tasks are judgment, not drafting. The three highest-stakes tasks below are still usually where we start — flip the toggle to 'With tools' to see what AI plus the right context can compress.
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Clean and polish metal items and jewelry pieces, using jewelers' tools, polishing wheels, and chemical baths.
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Smooth soldered joints and rough spots, using hand files and emery paper, and polish smoothed areas with polishing wheels or buffing wire.
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Create jewelry from materials such as gold, silver, platinum, and precious or semiprecious stones.
These are the highest-importance tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around these — usually the difference between an LLM that can technically do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
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Examine assembled or finished products to ensure conformance to specifications, using magnifying glasses or precision measuring instruments.
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Compute costs of labor and materials to determine production costs of products and articles.
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Grade stones based on their color, perfection, and quality of cut.
Every role has three or four wedges like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days. Talk to Alex about a project →
The full task breakdown
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can already do unaided versus what still needs a human. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
Tasks via O*NET "Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers" (51-9071.00).
What AI can already do
2 of 30 tasks · unaided
Compute costs of labor and materials to determine production costs of products and articles.
Write or modify design specifications such as the metal contents and weights of items.
Where humans still hold the line
28 of 30 tasks
Clean and polish metal items and jewelry pieces, using jewelers' tools, polishing wheels, and chemical baths.
Smooth soldered joints and rough spots, using hand files and emery paper, and polish smoothed areas with polishing wheels or buffing wire.
Create jewelry from materials such as gold, silver, platinum, and precious or semiprecious stones.
Cut and file pieces of jewelry such as rings, brooches, bracelets, and lockets.
Examine assembled or finished products to ensure conformance to specifications, using magnifying glasses or precision measuring instruments.
Make repairs, such as enlarging or reducing ring sizes, soldering pieces of jewelry together, and replacing broken clasps and mountings.
Position stones and metal pieces, and set, mount, and secure items in place, using setting and hand tools.
Grade stones based on their color, perfection, and quality of cut.
Select and acquire metals and gems for designs.
Buy and sell jewelry, or serve as agents between buyers and sellers.
Shape and straighten damaged or twisted articles by hand or using pliers.
Determine appraised values of diamonds and other gemstones based on price guides, market fluctuations, and stone grades and rarity.
Create new jewelry designs and modify existing designs, using computers as necessary.
Plate articles such as jewelry pieces and watch dials, using silver, gold, nickel, or other metals.
Record the weights and processing times of finished pieces.
Construct preliminary models of wax, metal, clay, or plaster, and form sample castings in molds.
Soften metal to be used in designs by heating it with a gas torch and shape it, using hammers and dies.
Pierce and cut open designs in ornamentation, using hand drills and scroll saws.
Research and analyze reference materials, and consult with interested parties to develop new products or modify existing designs.
Mark, engrave, or emboss designs on metal pieces such as castings, wire, or jewelry, following specifications.
Lay out designs on metal stock, and cut along markings to fabricate pieces used to cast metal molds.
Design and fabricate molds, models, and machine accessories, and modify hand tools used to cast metal and jewelry pieces.
Pour molten metal alloys or other materials into molds to cast models of jewelry.
Cut designs in molds or other materials to be used as models in the fabrication of metal and jewelry products.
Rout out locations where parts are to be joined to items, using routing machines.
Weigh, mix, and melt metal alloys or materials needed for jewelry models.
Anneal precious metal objects such as coffeepots, tea sets, and trays in gas ovens for prescribed times to soften metal for reworking.
Rotate molds to distribute alloys and to prevent formation of air pockets.
Tasks via O*NET "Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers" (51-9071.00).
What AI can already do
8 of 30 tasks · with tools
Examine assembled or finished products to ensure conformance to specifications, using magnifying glasses or precision measuring instruments.
Compute costs of labor and materials to determine production costs of products and articles.
Grade stones based on their color, perfection, and quality of cut.
Buy and sell jewelry, or serve as agents between buyers and sellers.
Determine appraised values of diamonds and other gemstones based on price guides, market fluctuations, and stone grades and rarity.
Create new jewelry designs and modify existing designs, using computers as necessary.
Write or modify design specifications such as the metal contents and weights of items.
Research and analyze reference materials, and consult with interested parties to develop new products or modify existing designs.
Where humans still hold the line
22 of 30 tasks
Clean and polish metal items and jewelry pieces, using jewelers' tools, polishing wheels, and chemical baths.
Smooth soldered joints and rough spots, using hand files and emery paper, and polish smoothed areas with polishing wheels or buffing wire.
Create jewelry from materials such as gold, silver, platinum, and precious or semiprecious stones.
Cut and file pieces of jewelry such as rings, brooches, bracelets, and lockets.
Make repairs, such as enlarging or reducing ring sizes, soldering pieces of jewelry together, and replacing broken clasps and mountings.
Position stones and metal pieces, and set, mount, and secure items in place, using setting and hand tools.
Select and acquire metals and gems for designs.
Shape and straighten damaged or twisted articles by hand or using pliers.
Plate articles such as jewelry pieces and watch dials, using silver, gold, nickel, or other metals.
Record the weights and processing times of finished pieces.
Construct preliminary models of wax, metal, clay, or plaster, and form sample castings in molds.
Soften metal to be used in designs by heating it with a gas torch and shape it, using hammers and dies.
Pierce and cut open designs in ornamentation, using hand drills and scroll saws.
Mark, engrave, or emboss designs on metal pieces such as castings, wire, or jewelry, following specifications.
Lay out designs on metal stock, and cut along markings to fabricate pieces used to cast metal molds.
Design and fabricate molds, models, and machine accessories, and modify hand tools used to cast metal and jewelry pieces.
Pour molten metal alloys or other materials into molds to cast models of jewelry.
Cut designs in molds or other materials to be used as models in the fabrication of metal and jewelry products.
Rout out locations where parts are to be joined to items, using routing machines.
Weigh, mix, and melt metal alloys or materials needed for jewelry models.
Anneal precious metal objects such as coffeepots, tea sets, and trays in gas ovens for prescribed times to soften metal for reworking.
Rotate molds to distribute alloys and to prevent formation of air pockets.
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Methodology
This role's exposure score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 GPT task labels, aggregated by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 via ISCO-08 (ONS Vol 2 coding index) and US SOC 2010 (BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional. ASHE covers employees only, so self-employed workers are not counted.
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