Will AI replace Roof Bolters, Mining?

What this score means

Roof Bolters, Mining is among the least exposed roles in Construction & Trades. Most of what the job involves still sits outside what current AI can do, even as the tools around it keep changing. At 11 out of 100 it scores 3 points below the Construction & Trades average of 14. Across the 3 sources behind this baseline, individual estimates run from 5 to 20, so the score is a weighted consensus rather than any single figure.

The number is a consensus estimate for the typical version of the role, built from published academic and industry research scored occupation by occupation. It is not a prediction about any individual. How scoring works

What this job actually involves

Exposure follows the work itself rather than the job title, so it is worth seeing what the role is made of. These are the tasks O*NET records for Roof Bolters, Mining, most central first, showing 12 of 14.

• 01Drill bolt holes into roofs at specified distances from ribs or adjacent bolts.
• 02Pull down loose rock that cannot be supported.
• 03Position bolting machines, and insert drill bits into chucks.
• 04Perform safety checks on equipment before operating.
• 05Perform tests to determine if methane gas is present.
• 06Force bolts into holes, using hydraulic mechanisms of self-propelled bolting machines.
• 07Perform ventilation tasks, such as hanging ventilation curtains and tubes.
• 08Dust rocks after bolting.
• 09Install various types of bolts, including truss, glue, and resin bolts, traversing entire ceiling spans.
• 10Drill test holes and test bolts for specified tension, using torque wrenches.
• 11Position safety jacks to support underground mine roofs until bolts can be installed.
• 12Rotate chucks to turn bolts and open expansion heads against rock formations.

Task statements from O*NET by the National Center for O*NET Development, used under CC BY 4.0. The tasks are descriptive; the exposure score above is ours.

The research behind this score

This baseline aggregates 3 research sources that scored Roof Bolters, Mining for AI and automation exposure. More recent, higher confidence studies carry more weight in the final number.

• 01Anthropic Economic Index 2026 - AI Task Exposure · 2026
• 02GPTs are GPTs: Labor Market Impact Potential of LLMs · 2024
• 03AI Occupational Exposure to Language Modeling · 2023

Also covers

Bolt Machine Operator · Bolt Man · Bolter · Bolting Inspector · Bolting Machine Operator · Miner · Place Change Roof Bolter · Roof Bolter and related titles

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