Skip to content
AI Job Stats

Social work and counselling professionals

Not exposedExposure gradient (ILO 2025)

In the ILO's assessment few of the job's tasks can be done by generative AI, or the scores are too spread out to reach gradient 1 — generative AI does not meaningfully take over the core of the work.

Exposure is not job loss: it shows how much of the work generative AI could do today. Whether that turns into transformation, productivity gains or cuts depends on employers, regulation — and on you.

Exposure score
28/ 100 · ±10
050100
Average of all occupations: 30

0 = today’s generative AI cannot perform any of the job’s tasks, 100 = it could do all of them fully. The pale band is the spread across tasks.

Work out your own score ↓
Change since 2023
−1
2023 classification
Not affected

What can you do?

The AI analysis for this occupation is still being prepared — the background process covers a few occupations every day.

Task by task

The ILO scored every task of the occupation separately, as the average of two AI models (GPT-4o and Gemini). The pale band is the range between the two models' scores, the dot the ILO's final score (for a few tasks expert review placed it outside the band).

  • Compiling case records or reports for courts and other legal proceedings46
  • Analysing the client's situation and presenting alternative approaches to resolving problems44
  • Planning and implementing programmes of assistance for clients including crisis intervention and referral to agencies that provide financial assistance, legal aid, housing, medical treatment and other services34
  • Acting as advocates for client groups in the community and lobbying for solutions to problems affecting them31
  • Developing prevention and intervention programmes to meet community needs30
  • Interviewing clients individually, in families, or in groups, to assess their situation and problems and determine the types of services required28
  • Maintaining contact with other social service agencies, educational institutions and health care providers involved with clients to provide information and obtain feedback on clients' overall situation and progress.26
  • Working with offenders during and after sentence, to help them to integrate into the community and to change attitudes and behaviour in order to reduce further offending24
  • Providing counselling, therapy and mediation services and facilitating group sessions to assist clients to develop skills and insights needed to deal with and resolve their social and personal problems20
  • Providing advice to prison governors and to probation and parole review boards that helps determine whether, and under what conditions, an offender should be incarcerated, released from prison or undergo alternative correctional measures17
  • Investigating cases of abuse or neglect and taking action to protect children and other at risk persons14

How much does it affect you?

Every job is different: mark which of these tasks you do and how much, and we'll compute your own, time-weighted score.

For each task: I don't do it · sometimes · most of my job.

  • Compiling case records or reports for courts and other legal proceedings(46)
  • Analysing the client's situation and presenting alternative approaches to resolving problems(44)
  • Planning and implementing programmes of assistance for clients including crisis intervention and referral to agencies that provide financial assistance, legal aid, housing, medical treatment and other services(34)
  • Acting as advocates for client groups in the community and lobbying for solutions to problems affecting them(31)
  • Developing prevention and intervention programmes to meet community needs(30)
  • Interviewing clients individually, in families, or in groups, to assess their situation and problems and determine the types of services required(28)
  • Maintaining contact with other social service agencies, educational institutions and health care providers involved with clients to provide information and obtain feedback on clients' overall situation and progress.(26)
  • Working with offenders during and after sentence, to help them to integrate into the community and to change attitudes and behaviour in order to reduce further offending(24)
  • Providing counselling, therapy and mediation services and facilitating group sessions to assist clients to develop skills and insights needed to deal with and resolve their social and personal problems(20)
  • Providing advice to prison governors and to probation and parole review boards that helps determine whether, and under what conditions, an offender should be incarcerated, released from prison or undergo alternative correctional measures(17)
  • Investigating cases of abuse or neglect and taking action to protect children and other at risk persons(14)
Your estimated exposure score
28/ 100

You are exactly at the occupation average. (The occupation's score: 28.)

About 0% of your working time goes to highly exposed tasks (score ≥ 50).

Most affected
  • • Compiling case records or reports for courts and other legal proceedings
  • • Analysing the client's situation and presenting alternative approaches to resolving problems
Most likely to stay human
  • • Investigating cases of abuse or neglect and taking action to protect children and other at risk persons
  • • Providing advice to prison governors and to probation and parole review boards that helps determine whether, and under what conditions, an offender should be incarcerated, released from prison or undergo alternative correctional measures

An estimate from the ILO task scores. Everything is computed in your browser — nothing is sent or stored.

How many people work in this occupational group?

Share of the Legal, social and cultural professionals group in total employment, by country (Eurostat, ISCO 2-digit — 4-digit breakdowns are not public by country).

Legal, social and cultural professionals
Table view
CountryLegal, social and cultural professionals
Luxembourg9.6% · 32 thousand · 2025
Netherlands4.5% · 444 thousand · 2025
Sweden4.3% · 227 thousand · 2025
Croatia4.1% · 70 thousand · 2025
Belgium3.8% · 197 thousand · 2025
Denmark3.6% · 109 thousand · 2025
Greece3.5% · 153 thousand · 2025
Slovenia3.5% · 35 thousand · 2025
Norway3.4% · 99 thousand · 2025
United Kingdom3.4% · 1,162 thousand · 2025
Lithuania3.3% · 49 thousand · 2025
Germany3.3% · 1,412 thousand · 2025
Finland3.3% · 86 thousand · 2025
Hungary3.3% · 154 thousand · 2025
France3.3% · 964 thousand · 2025
Austria3.2% · 146 thousand · 2025
Switzerland3.2% · 156 thousand · 2025
Cyprus3.1% · 16 thousand · 2025
Iceland3.1% · 7 thousand · 2025
Spain3.1% · 695 thousand · 2025
Estonia3.1% · 21 thousand · 2025
Bulgaria3.1% · 90 thousand · 2025
Portugal2.9% · 153 thousand · 2025
Slovakia2.7% · 72 thousand · 2025
Czechia2.6% · 136 thousand · 2025
Italy2.5% · 601 thousand · 2025
Latvia2.5% · 22 thousand · 2025
Ireland2.4% · 68 thousand · 2025
Poland2.2% · 386 thousand · 2025
Malta1.9% · 6 thousand · 2025
Romania1.9% · 147 thousand · 2025
6.49 m
Legal, social and cultural professionals — EU27
Eurostat · 2025
3.1%
of all employed (EU27)

What do they earn?

Mean gross monthly earnings in the major occupational group (Professionals). Eurostat's earnings survey only publishes pay by occupation at 1 digit, so this is the job's broader group. Enterprises with 10+ employees, 2022.

€3,850
EU average (gross/month)
+34% compared with the average of all occupations

By country, at purchasing power parity (PPS/month), so countries with different price levels can be compared.

  1. Switzerland6,389
  2. Luxembourg5,274
  3. Ireland4,873
  4. Germany4,807
  5. Belgium4,799
  6. Denmark4,446
  7. Norway4,237
  8. Austria4,099
  9. Netherlands4,031
  10. Iceland3,875
  11. EU273,850
  12. France3,791
  13. Finland3,769
  14. Romania3,559
  15. Sweden3,416
  16. Spain3,413
  17. Slovenia3,326
  18. Italy3,305
  19. Cyprus3,271
  20. Lithuania3,221
  21. Croatia2,890
  22. Czechia2,871
  23. Malta2,825
  24. Poland2,783
  25. Hungary2,777
  26. Portugal2,755
  27. Latvia2,671
  28. Estonia2,599
  29. Bulgaria2,359
  30. Slovakia2,345
  31. Greece2,321

Source: Eurostat Structure of Earnings Survey (earn_ses22_21), every four years. The United Kingdom is not covered by the survey.

Outlook to 2035

Employment in the Legal, social and cultural professionals group according to Cedefop's 2026 forecast.

350400433201520192023202720312035

thousand · Cedefop Skills Forecast 2026 · 2026–2035: projection

+4.7%
Change 2025→2035
+19 k
Expansion
120 k
Replacement demand
139 k
Total expected openings

Replacement demand is the jobs left by people retiring or changing careers — even a shrinking occupation can have many openings.

Related occupations

Sources: ILO WP140 (2025) · Eurostat lfsa_egai2d · Cedefop Skills Forecast 2026 · WEF Future of Jobs 2025 · ESCO. The exposure score measures how much of an occupation's tasks generative AI could perform — not whether the job disappears. For information only, not career advice. How do we calculate this?