Tailors and dressmakers
Tailors and dressmakers prepare patterns and make, fit and alter tailored garments, dresses and other articles of clothing.
- Employees (UK)
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- Median annual pay
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- Exposure score ?
- 0.8/10 Minimal 3.5/10 Low strict reading, with tools is 3.5/10 with-tools reading, strict is 0.8/10
- Wage exposure
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Higher exposure than 46% 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.
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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Thread yarn, thread, or fabric through guides, needles, and rollers of machines.
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Operate machines to cut multiple layers of fabric into parts for articles such as canvas goods, house furnishings, garments, hats, or stuffed toys.
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Inspect products to ensure that the quality standards and specifications are met.
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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Inspect products to ensure that the quality standards and specifications are met.
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Program electronic equipment.
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Study guides, samples, charts, and specification sheets or confer with supervisors or engineering staff to determine set-up requirements.
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 "Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders" (51-6062.00).
What AI can already do
2 of 18 tasks, unaided
Program electronic equipment.
Record information about work completed and machine settings.
What still needs a person
16 of 18 tasks
Thread yarn, thread, or fabric through guides, needles, and rollers of machines.
Operate machines to cut multiple layers of fabric into parts for articles such as canvas goods, house furnishings, garments, hats, or stuffed toys.
Inspect products to ensure that the quality standards and specifications are met.
Adjust cutting techniques to types of fabrics and styles of garments.
Place patterns on top of layers of fabric and cut fabric following patterns, using electric or manual knives, cutters, or computer numerically controlled cutting devices.
Study guides, samples, charts, and specification sheets or confer with supervisors or engineering staff to determine set-up requirements.
Start machines, monitor operations, and make adjustments as needed.
Stop machines when specified amounts of product have been produced.
Adjust machine controls, such as heating mechanisms, tensions, or speeds, to produce specified products.
Notify supervisors of mechanical malfunctions.
Inspect machinery to determine whether repairs are needed.
Operate machines for test runs to verify adjustments and to obtain product samples.
Confer with coworkers to obtain information about orders, processes, or problems.
Install, level, and align components, such as gears, chains, guides, dies, cutters, or needles, to set up machinery for operation.
Repair or replace worn or defective parts or components, using hand tools.
Clean, oil, and lubricate machines, using air hoses, cleaning solutions, rags, oilcans, and grease guns.
Tasks via O*NET "Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders" (51-6062.00).
What AI can already do
4 of 18 tasks, with tools
Inspect products to ensure that the quality standards and specifications are met.
Program electronic equipment.
Study guides, samples, charts, and specification sheets or confer with supervisors or engineering staff to determine set-up requirements.
Record information about work completed and machine settings.
What still needs a person
14 of 18 tasks
Thread yarn, thread, or fabric through guides, needles, and rollers of machines.
Operate machines to cut multiple layers of fabric into parts for articles such as canvas goods, house furnishings, garments, hats, or stuffed toys.
Adjust cutting techniques to types of fabrics and styles of garments.
Place patterns on top of layers of fabric and cut fabric following patterns, using electric or manual knives, cutters, or computer numerically controlled cutting devices.
Start machines, monitor operations, and make adjustments as needed.
Stop machines when specified amounts of product have been produced.
Adjust machine controls, such as heating mechanisms, tensions, or speeds, to produce specified products.
Notify supervisors of mechanical malfunctions.
Inspect machinery to determine whether repairs are needed.
Operate machines for test runs to verify adjustments and to obtain product samples.
Confer with coworkers to obtain information about orders, processes, or problems.
Install, level, and align components, such as gears, chains, guides, dies, cutters, or needles, to set up machinery for operation.
Repair or replace worn or defective parts or components, using hand tools.
Clean, oil, and lubricate machines, using air hoses, cleaning solutions, rags, oilcans, and grease guns.
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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