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Airline pilots score 4.2 out of 10 for AI exposure, where 10 is most at risk. Long-haul highway trucking scores 5.9. Urban delivery driving scores 4.6. And logistics planning — the office job that coordinates all of it — scores 7.3, higher than anyone actually operating a vehicle. Transport is the one field where automation has been promised longest and delivered least, and the reason is instructive.
The short answer for parents: more protected than a decade of headlines suggested, and the protection is uneven in ways that matter. Structured, predictable routes are the exposed part. Unpredictable environments and regulated accountability are not. The safest jobs in transport involve a person the law requires to be responsible.
Every career in this index is scored 1–10, where 10 is most exposed to AI. Same six factors, same weights, applied identically to a pilot and a paralegal.
| Transport track | 2023 | 2025 | Now | 3-yr move | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marine officer / ship's officer | 3.5 | 3.8 | 4.1 | +0.6 | Low–Mod |
| Airline pilot | 3.5 | 3.9 | 4.2 | +0.7 | Low–Mod |
| Local delivery / urban driving | 4.0 | 4.3 | 4.6 | +0.6 | Moderate |
| Rail operations | 4.4 | 4.8 | 5.2 | +0.8 | Moderate |
| Long-haul highway trucking | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.9 | +0.9 | Moderate |
| Logistics planning & coordination | 6.3 | 6.9 | 7.3 | +1.0 | High |
2023 and 2025 figures are reconstructed using current methodology, not archived from past editions.
For scalethe median career in this edition scores around 5.5. A service electrician scores 2.5. A business analyst scores 7.6. Entry-level software development scores 8.1.
The row that surprises people is the last one. The office job that plans the routes is more exposed than any job driving them.
Slower than promised, and unevenly. Autonomous highway driving is genuinely advanced; everything around it is not.
Automation in transport has consistently arrived first where the environment is controlled — motorways, ports, rail corridors, warehouse yards — and stalled where it is not.
How airline piloting rates against each. Ratings are 0–10 on each factor's own terms.
So you can see what the analysis actually looks like.
Does it have to be done in person, with your hands? — rated 6.0
Everywhere else in this index, physical work is strong protection. Nurses rate 9.0, physical therapists 9.5, service electricians 9.5. Transport is the test case for how far that protection actually extends, because it is the one physical domain where automation has had decades of investment and genuine success.
Piloting rates only 6.0, and honestly so. Autopilot already flies most of a commercial flight. The physical act of controlling the aircraft is largely automated and has been for years. What keeps a pilot in the seat is not their hands.
So why does piloting still score 4.2? Because the protection came from elsewhere entirely — a 9.5 on licensing and a 9.0 on human accountability. Aviation is among the most heavily regulated activities on earth, and the requirement for a qualified human to be responsible for the aircraft is written into international law rather than into the technology.
This is the clearest demonstration in the index that physical protection and regulatory protection are genuinely separate things, and that they decay at completely different rates. Physical automation in transport has advanced enormously. The regulatory requirement has barely moved.
Now look at where the physical factor is doing work. Urban delivery rates 9.0 — parcels, stairs, doorways, gates, dogs, a different building every stop. It scores better than long-haul trucking despite far weaker licensing, purely because the environment is unpredictable. Highway trucking rates 7.0: physical, but on a mapped route in controlled conditions, which is exactly where automation works.
The general lesson: "physical" is not one thing. Ask whether the environment is predictable, and ask separately whether the law requires a person. Those are different shields, and a career with only the first one is more exposed than it appears.
Ranked by exposure, safest first:
Better than the last decade of coverage implied, with genuine caveats.
Aviation and maritime carry the strongest protection in the field — regulated, licensed, accountable, and with persistent shortages in both. Training is expensive and lengthy, particularly for pilots, and that cost is the real barrier rather than automation.
Driving work splits sharply. Urban and specialist delivery — anything involving handling, access problems and customer contact — is meaningfully protected. Long-haul highway work is the most exposed operating role we score, and it is also the segment with the most sustained investment behind automating it.
Logistics and supply chain planning is the office end, and it scores like other office coordination work — because that is what it is.
Worth knowing: automation in this sector has repeatedly arrived later than forecast, and the gap between capability and deployment is unusually wide here because of regulation, liability and insurance. That lag is a buffer rather than a shelter, but in transport it is a long buffer.
This sampler tells you where transport stands. The full profile tells you what to do about it.
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