Will AI replace Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
16/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 29% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 33% of the work
What the job involves
Tend, control, or operate power-driven, stationary, or portable pumps and manifold systems to transfer gases, oil, other liquids, slurries, or powdered materials to and from various vessels and processes.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(4)
- Read operating schedules or instructions or receive verbal orders to determine amounts to be pumped.
- Communicate with other workers, using signals, radios, or telephones, to start and stop flows of materials or substances.
- Record operating data such as products and quantities pumped, stocks used, gauging results, and operating times.
- Plan movement of products through lines to processing, storage, and shipping units, using knowledge of interconnections and capacities of pipelines, valve manifolds, pumps, and tankage.
Out of reach(10)
- Turn valves and start pumps to start or regulate flows of substances such as gases, liquids, slurries, or powdered materials.
- Monitor gauges and flowmeters and inspect equipment to ensure that tank levels, temperatures, chemical amounts, and pressures are at specified levels, reporting abnormalities as necessary.
- Connect hoses and pipelines to pumps and vessels prior to material transfer, using hand tools.
- Clean, lubricate, and repair pumps and vessels, using hand tools and equipment.
- Tend vessels that store substances such as gases, liquids, slurries, or powdered materials, checking levels of substances by using calibrated rods or by reading mercury gauges and tank charts.
and 5 more
Also called
Pumper · Boom Pump Operator · Brewery Pumper · Pigment Pumper · Pump Operator · Acid Loader · Acid Pump Operator · Airveyor Operator
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