Will AI replace Aerospace Engineers?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
50/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 80% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 7% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 92% of the work
What the job involves
Perform engineering duties in designing, constructing, and testing aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft. May conduct basic and applied research to evaluate adaptability of materials and equipment to aircraft design and manufacture. May recommend improvements in testing equipment and techniques.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(1)
- Write technical reports or other documentation, such as handbooks or bulletins, for use by engineering staff, management, or customers.
Within reach(12)
- Evaluate product data or design from inspections or reports for conformance to engineering principles, customer requirements, environmental regulations, or quality standards.
- Direct or coordinate activities of engineering or technical personnel involved in designing, fabricating, modifying, or testing of aircraft or aerospace products.
- Formulate conceptual design of aeronautical or aerospace products or systems to meet customer requirements or conform to environmental regulations.
- Diagnose performance problems by reviewing reports or documentation from customers or field engineers or by inspecting malfunctioning or damaged products.
- Formulate mathematical models or other methods of computer analysis to develop, evaluate, or modify design, according to customer engineering requirements.
and 7 more
Out of reach(1)
- Plan or conduct experimental, environmental, operational, or stress tests on models or prototypes of aircraft or aerospace systems or equipment.
Also called
Aeronautical Engineer · Stress Analyst · Stress Engineer · Design Engineer · Flight Test Engineer · Aerodynamicist · Flight Analyst · Avionics Engineer
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics