UK AI Exposure · Professional occupations
Primary education teaching professionals
Primary (and middle school deemed primary) and education teaching professionals plan, organise and provide instruction to children at all levels up to the age of entry into secondary education.
- Employees (UK)
- 400k
- Median annual pay
- £42,031
- Exposure score ?
- 0.7/10 Minimal direct 0.7 · with tools 5.9
- Wage exposure
- £1.18bn
Higher exposure than 38% 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.
The tasks in this role, ranked by AI exposure
Below are the real tasks O*NET records for this occupation, sorted highest exposure first. "AI can do this" means a language model can already handle the task directly. "AI can help" means an LLM can assist but not replace. "Human work" means today's AI doesn't touch it. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
2 of 38 tasks in this role are things an AI can already do today. Task list mapped via O*NET "Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education" (25-2021.00).
Read books to entire classes or small groups.
Prepare reports on students and activities as required by administration.
Instruct students individually and in groups, using teaching methods such as lectures, discussions, and demonstrations.
Establish and enforce rules for behavior and procedures for maintaining order among the students.
Guide and counsel students with adjustment or academic problems or with special academic interests.
Adapt teaching methods and instructional materials to meet students' varying needs and interests.
Plan and conduct activities for a balanced program of instruction, demonstration, and work time that provides students with opportunities to observe, question, and investigate.
Prepare materials and classrooms for class activities.
Observe and evaluate students' performance, behavior, social development, and physical health.
Confer with parents or guardians, teachers, counselors, and administrators to resolve students' behavioral and academic problems.
Meet with parents and guardians to discuss their children's progress and to determine priorities for their children and their resource needs.
Use computers, audio-visual aids, and other equipment and materials to supplement presentations.
Meet with other professionals to discuss individual students' needs and progress.
Establish clear objectives for all lessons, units, and projects and communicate those objectives to students.
Prepare and implement remedial programs for students requiring extra help.
Assign and grade class work and homework.
Prepare, administer, and grade tests and assignments to evaluate students' progress.
Prepare students for later grades by encouraging them to explore learning opportunities and to persevere with challenging tasks.
Maintain accurate and complete student records as required by laws, district policies, and administrative regulations.
Enforce administration policies and rules governing students.
Organize and lead activities designed to promote physical, mental, and social development, such as games, arts and crafts, music, and storytelling.
Provide a variety of materials and resources for children to explore, manipulate, and use, both in learning activities and in imaginative play.
Provide students with disabilities with assistive devices, supportive technology, and assistance accessing facilities, such as restrooms.
Prepare objectives and outlines for courses of study, following curriculum guidelines or requirements of states and schools.
Prepare for assigned classes and show written evidence of preparation upon request of immediate supervisors.
Instruct and monitor students in the use and care of equipment and materials to prevent injuries and damage.
Confer with other staff members to plan and schedule lessons promoting learning, following approved curricula.
Collaborate with other teachers and administrators in the development, evaluation, and revision of elementary school programs.
Attend professional meetings, educational conferences, and teacher training workshops to maintain and improve professional competence.
Administer standardized ability and achievement tests, and interpret results to determine student strengths and needs.
Plan and supervise class projects, field trips, visits by guest speakers or other experiential activities, and guide students in learning from those activities.
Supervise, evaluate, and plan assignments for teacher assistants and volunteers.
Organize and label materials and display students' work.
Perform administrative duties, such as school library assistance, hall and cafeteria monitoring, and bus loading and unloading.
Attend staff meetings and serve on committees, as required.
Select, store, order, issue, and inventory classroom equipment, materials, and supplies.
Involve parent volunteers and older students in children's activities to facilitate involvement in focused, complex play.
Sponsor extracurricular activities, such as clubs, student organizations, and academic contests.
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
This role's strict α score is low because its top tasks are judgment, not drafting. But those same tasks compress dramatically when AI is paired with the right context and tools. The three highest-stakes tasks below are usually where we start.
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Instruct students individually and in groups, using teaching methods such as lectures, discussions, and demonstrations.
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Establish and enforce rules for behavior and procedures for maintaining order among the students.
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Guide and counsel students with adjustment or academic problems or with special academic interests.
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 →
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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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