Pharmaceutical technicians and assistants
AI can help with a few sub-tasks (emails, paperwork), but the core of the job doesn't change.
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.
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 ↓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).
- Pricing and filing prescriptions that have been filled and establish and maintaining patient records, including lists of medications taken by individual patients51
- Receiving prescriptions or refill requests from health professionals and verifying that information is complete and accurate according to medical record-keeping standards42
- Assisting clients by answering questions, locating items or referring them to a pharmacist for medication information39
- Ordering, labelling, and counting stock of medications, chemicals and supplies, and entering inventory data into records-keeping systems33
- Dispensing medicines and drugs to clients and giving written and oral instructions on their use, as prescribed by medical doctors, veterinarians or other health professionals28
- Preparing medications and other pharmaceutical compounds under the guidance of a pharmacist or other health professional24
- Maintaining proper storage and security conditions for drugs22
- Filling and labelling containers with prescribed medications17
- Cleaning and preparing equipment and containers used to prepare and dispense medicines and pharmaceutical compounds.15
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.
- Pricing and filing prescriptions that have been filled and establish and maintaining patient records, including lists of medications taken by individual patients(51)
- Receiving prescriptions or refill requests from health professionals and verifying that information is complete and accurate according to medical record-keeping standards(42)
- Assisting clients by answering questions, locating items or referring them to a pharmacist for medication information(39)
- Ordering, labelling, and counting stock of medications, chemicals and supplies, and entering inventory data into records-keeping systems(33)
- Dispensing medicines and drugs to clients and giving written and oral instructions on their use, as prescribed by medical doctors, veterinarians or other health professionals(28)
- Preparing medications and other pharmaceutical compounds under the guidance of a pharmacist or other health professional(24)
- Maintaining proper storage and security conditions for drugs(22)
- Filling and labelling containers with prescribed medications(17)
- Cleaning and preparing equipment and containers used to prepare and dispense medicines and pharmaceutical compounds.(15)
You are exactly at the occupation average. (The occupation's score: 30.)
About 11% of your working time goes to highly exposed tasks (score ≥ 50).
- • Pricing and filing prescriptions that have been filled and establish and maintaining patient records, including lists of medications taken by individual patients
- • Receiving prescriptions or refill requests from health professionals and verifying that information is complete and accurate according to medical record-keeping standards
- • Cleaning and preparing equipment and containers used to prepare and dispense medicines and pharmaceutical compounds.
- • Filling and labelling containers with prescribed medications
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 Health associate professionals group in total employment, by country (Eurostat, ISCO 2-digit — 4-digit breakdowns are not public by country).
Table view
| Country | Health associate professionals |
|---|---|
| Germany | 6.3% · 2,657 thousand · 2025 |
| Finland | 4.3% · 112 thousand · 2025 |
| Italy | 3.4% · 820 thousand · 2025 |
| France | 3.4% · 989 thousand · 2025 |
| Switzerland | 3.3% · 158 thousand · 2025 |
| Croatia | 3.1% · 53 thousand · 2025 |
| Slovakia | 3.1% · 80 thousand · 2025 |
| Netherlands | 2.9% · 285 thousand · 2025 |
| Belgium | 2.6% · 135 thousand · 2025 |
| Hungary | 2.5% · 118 thousand · 2025 |
| Slovenia | 2.3% · 23 thousand · 2025 |
| Czechia | 1.9% · 102 thousand · 2025 |
| Austria | 1.9% · 87 thousand · 2025 |
| Iceland | 1.8% · 4 thousand · 2025 |
| Norway | 1.6% · 48 thousand · 2025 |
| United Kingdom | 1.6% · 531 thousand · 2025 |
| Malta | 1.4% · 5 thousand · 2025 |
| Romania | 1.4% · 109 thousand · 2025 |
| Spain | 1.3% · 286 thousand · 2025 |
| Denmark | 1.3% · 39 thousand · 2025 |
| Sweden | 1.2% · 66 thousand · 2025 |
| Poland | 1.2% · 211 thousand · 2025 |
| Portugal | 1.2% · 63 thousand · 2025 |
| Ireland | 1.1% · 31 thousand · 2025 |
| Estonia | 1.0% · 7 thousand · 2025 |
| Latvia | 0.9% · 8 thousand · 2025 |
| Lithuania | 0.9% · 13 thousand · 2025 |
| Greece | 0.7% · 30 thousand · 2025 |
| Cyprus | 0.6% · 3 thousand · 2025 |
| Bulgaria | 0.5% · 15 thousand · 2025 |
What do they earn?
Mean gross monthly earnings in the major occupational group (Technicians and associate 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.
By country, at purchasing power parity (PPS/month), so countries with different price levels can be compared.
- Switzerland5,280
- Luxembourg4,320
- Norway4,307
- Denmark4,301
- Ireland4,024
- Belgium3,903
- Iceland3,856
- Germany3,608
- Austria3,399
- Netherlands3,247
- EU273,226
- Italy3,127
- Sweden3,089
- Finland2,971
- France2,687
- Spain2,685
- Slovenia2,660
- Cyprus2,537
- Lithuania2,472
- Malta2,464
- Romania2,310
- Poland2,294
- Czechia2,275
- Estonia2,251
- Croatia2,127
- Latvia2,081
- Hungary2,054
- Greece2,050
- Portugal2,044
- Slovakia2,027
- Bulgaria1,738
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 Health associate professionals group according to Cedefop's 2026 forecast.
thousand · Cedefop Skills Forecast 2026 · 2026–2035: projection
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?