Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors

Low Risk
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Occupation snapshot

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
3.9/10
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.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

23% (Low Risk)

Low Risk (21-40%): This occupation has a lower risk of full replacement by AI, software, or robotic systems. Some tasks may be automated or assisted, but the role usually still relies on human judgement, communication, responsibility, physical adaptability, or practical decision-making.

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

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Thinking creatively

Very important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
Jobs that also use this strength

Instructing

Very important
Why this matters
Teaching or coaching others—explaining steps, giving feedback, and adapting to different learners so they can do the work safely and correctly.
Jobs that also use this strength

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
Jobs that also use this strength

Working directly with the public

Quite important
Why this matters
The job involves face-to-face interaction with customers, clients, or guests—answering questions, handling requests, and managing service situations in real time. Roles with frequent public interaction are harder to replace end-to-end because they rely on trust, communication, and adapting to unpredictable human needs.
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Negotiation

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together to reconcile differences, trade off priorities, and reach agreements—work that depends on trust, persuasion, and reading the situation.
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Show 3 more strengths

Decision-making and problem solving

Quite important
Why this matters
Analyze information, weigh tradeoffs, and choose the best solution—especially when situations are ambiguous, high-stakes, or have real-world consequences.
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Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 81 votes

40% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 23% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors was $59,950 ($29 per hour).

The median annual wage for Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors was 21.1% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Very slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors' job openings is expected to decline 13.7% by 2034

View employment trend

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.

Volume

Lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 36,260 people employed as 'Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors' within the United States.

This represents around < 0.001% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 4 thousand people are employed as 'Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors'.

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What people are saying (8)

Leave a comment
Laura
30 Mar 2026 17:30
Students have different preferences for learning, and I think a mixture of learning methods and materials will always be in demand, from AI apps to human teachers. For langauge learning in particular, people learn languages because they want to be able to interact with other people - no matter how well your AI says your are doing, you'll want to talk to a human to really verify how well you can communicate.
User (Moderate)
13 Jan 2026 21:16
There are a lot of language learning AIs popping up and a lot of people will buy into it. But it will never replace human conversation.
Zain (Highly likely)
15 Mar 2025 19:55
English Instructors are beat out by LLMs like ChatGPT that could explain English concepts better than any fresh graduate with an English degree.
Sandra (Moderate)
09 Oct 2024 13:17
Some aspects of teaching such as grading, creating materials, tracking performance, monitoring process can be automated. However, emotional support, motivation, guidance regarding learning techniques, spontaneous communication can be better performed by an excellent teacher.
Jeff (Uncertain)
13 Feb 2023 18:14
Strategies for language acquisition vary a lot between individuals. Good language teaching requires a humanistic approach, which by definition, excludes total automation. Good teachers help embed memories of new vocabulary, not just by repetition and correction, but by observation of students that they then use to help them find individualised strategies for getting rid of errors. Also, there is the social element of attending language lessons that AI can't (yet) facilitate. However, as an industry, TEFL is not as valued as it probably should be. As such, I think people may be happy to have a lesser quality of teaching if it is cheaper, and then supplement their learning by language exchanges and conversation classes. Either way, I don't really see total domination of the industry by AI.
Carina (Low)
28 Oct 2022 18:33
Most students prefer in person classes with their instructor.
Mostafa (Low)
14 Sep 2022 21:27
Maybe I'm wrong, but robots must be programmed to understand local speeches and cultures in every countryside around the world. They should work like a mediator figure between the learners and their local speech and culture.

That's going to be crazy! Especially when speeches and cultures change over time, you'll always need new robots to be compatible with that change. But finally, all that would be possible.
Daniel (Low)
21 Apr 2020 19:16
Initial education training requires a lot of face-to-face accompaniment from human tutors.
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Job description

Teach or instruct out-of-school youths and adults in basic education, literacy, or English as a Second Language classes, or in classes for earning a high school equivalency credential.

O*NET-SOC code: 25-3011.00