Power Line Worker
The strongest automation effort in this trade is Hydro-Québec's LineScout robot, a genuinely real, commercially licensed device (used by National Grid in the UK and tested by the New York Power Authority) that inspects and applies protective coating to energized transmission lines — but it's tele-operated by a human lineworker, not autonomous, and it inspects rather than builds or repairs.
We have not ingested real-world usage data for this occupation yet. We show a band only where genuine data exists, rather than estimate one.
What a power line worker actually does
Power line workers build, maintain, and repair the poles, towers, transformers, and cables that carry electricity from generating stations to homes and businesses. The job starts with reading blueprints and work orders to figure out what a job actually requires, then climbing poles or towers — or riding a bucket truck — to string new cable, install transformers and switching equipment, and splice or repair damaged lines.
A huge share of the work is de-energizing circuits safely before touching them: testing for voltage with meters, applying grounding equipment, and following lockout/tagout procedures precisely, because a mistake at height around thousands of volts is catastrophic, not just costly. When storms knock out power to whole neighborhoods, line workers are the crews sent out at 2 a. m.
in freezing rain or hurricane aftermath to find the fault and restore service, often working mutual-aid rotations that send crews across state lines for weeks at a time. Apprenticeships run three to four years and combine paid on-the-job training with classroom instruction in electrical theory, climbing, rigging, and safety procedure — a slow, hands-on trade that can't be compressed into a certificate course.
Why it reads this way
The strongest automation effort in this trade is Hydro-Québec's LineScout robot, a genuinely real, commercially licensed device (used by National Grid in the UK and tested by the New York Power Authority) that inspects and applies protective coating to energized transmission lines — but it's tele-operated by a human lineworker, not autonomous, and it inspects rather than builds or repairs.
Drone-based line inspection has spread faster and further (Georgia Power reports roughly 60% lower inspection costs), but utilities and trade press consistently describe it as changing how faults get found, not eliminating the crews dispatched to fix them once found. OSHA's 29 CFR 1910.
269 requires anyone working on or near energized lines to be individually trained and demonstrated 'qualified' for the specific hazard — a real, per-worker legal standard, not a credential one supervisor can hold on behalf of a robot or a crew. BLS projects 7% employment growth through 2034, well above average, driven by an aging workforce, EV-charging buildout, and data-center-driven grid expansion — demand pressures pointing toward more line workers being needed, not fewer.
Skills this role draws on
We don't yet have task-by-task time-share data for this occupation, so we can't show which specific tasks carry the exposure score above. This is the real skill set instead.
Typical salary range (USD)
$51,470–$128,690
Average: $95,320/yr
Range source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers (49-9051.00), 2025 release
Average source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers (49-9051.00), 2025 release, accessed via O*NET OnLine / My Next Move — direct bls.gov access returned HTTP 403 during research
Related careers
Head-to-head comparisons
Power Line Worker scores 90/100 on structuralScore (Medium confidence), the highest of the new utility batch. The one real robotic effort, Hydro-Québec's LineScout, is commercially licensed (used by UK's National Grid, tested by NYPA) but is tele-operated by a human lineworker and limited to inspecting/coating energized lines, not building or repairing them. Drone inspection has spread further but utilities consistently frame it as changing how faults are found, not eliminating the crews dispatched to fix them. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269 requires every individual working on energized lines to be personally trained and demonstrated 'qualified' — a real, per-worker legal standard. BLS projects 7% employment growth through 2034, among the strongest in this batch, driven by an aging workforce and EV/data-center-driven grid buildout.
This is a researched judgment (checklist v1.2), not a statistical measurement — it sits alongside, not instead of, the structural exposure signal above. Next scheduled review: 2027-02-11.
Data sources & methodology
Salary data: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers (49-9051.00), 2025 release. Min/max figures represent the 10th–90th percentile annual wage range across the United States. Average figure sourced separately: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers (49-9051.00), 2025 release, accessed via O*NET OnLine / My Next Move — direct bls.gov access returned HTTP 403 during research.
Automation Risk Score: Based on O*NET occupational analysis (49-9051.00) evaluating task complexity, physical requirements, social intelligence, and environmental variability. Methodology based on research from Frey & Osborne (Oxford, 2017).
Growth projections: 7% (2024-2034), much faster than average, ~10,700 annual openings, based on BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.