Cost Estimators

Moderate Risk
52%

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Vote Comments (5)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
54%
(Moderate Risk)
POLLING
50%
(Moderate Risk, Based on 121 votes)
Average: 52%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
-3.6%
by year 2033
WAGES
$74,740
or $35.93 per hour
Volume
220,970
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.3/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

People also viewed

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Calculated automation risk

54% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Social Perceptiveness

  • Persuasion

  • Negotiation

User poll

50% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 54% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Cost Estimators will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Very slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Cost Estimators' job openings is expected to decline 3.6% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Cost Estimators' was $74,740, or $36 per hour

'Cost Estimators' were paid 55.5% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 220,970 people employed as 'Cost Estimators' within the United States.

This represents around 0.15% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 687 people are employed as 'Cost Estimators'.

Job description

Prepare cost estimates for product manufacturing, construction projects, or services to aid management in bidding on or determining price of product or service. May specialize according to particular service performed or type of product manufactured.

SOC Code: 13-1051.00

Comments (5)

Leave a comment
AR (Highly likely)
22 Jan 2024 17:31
99% of my job is working in various programs (planswift, excel, bluebeam, etc) so it's just a matter of when they can automate those programs. High level humans will remain, as there will be too many unknowns to be accounted for.
Dozerking
28 Jul 2024 16:47
Agreed. I use the same programs including Agtek for Earthwork which was once done by hand back in the early 90's before Paydirt and others like Agtek came along. These still need humans but I can see this being automated eventually. GPS in machines can automate to perform cuts and fills but there still needs to be a human in the cab, but who knows how long that will eventually go to a remote drone like system out in the field. Of course, safety would be the biggest hurdle here. I believe takeoff will be automated eventually in our lifetimes but as you said, there are too many unknowns in construction that it will be quite sometime in order to remove the human element. Project management is another one. I guess eventually when they have units like Data from Star Trek, then everything is on the table...
Mack (Low)
19 May 2023 13:13
Estimations require human overview to determine cost v value, feasibility, weighing up real-time economic trends, personalised and unique designs from client etc.

Tasks such as drawing takeoff and generating schedules can be automated to a certain extent but still require human spot check and verification.

Admin tasks to set up and administer contracts can be automated.
Alhasan (Moderate)
12 Jul 2022 09:43
This job is likely to become automated gradually, as it is becoming more dependent on software. It requires machine learning and automated market research.
Sam (Highly likely)
20 Jan 2020 02:39
Too simple
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