Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film

Moderate Risk
Low High

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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

43% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): This occupation may be meaningfully affected by automation. Some parts of the role may be suitable for AI, software, or robotics, while others still rely on human skill, judgement, trust, or real-world context. People in this range may benefit from building skills that complement automation and reduce replacement risk.

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

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

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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Communicating with people outside the organization

Quite important
Why this matters
Represents the organization to customers, the public, or government—handling questions, concerns, and relationship-building through conversations, writing, calls, or email.
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What users think

Based on 187 votes

55% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 43% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film 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 Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film was $68,810 ($33 per hour).

The median annual wage for Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film was 39.0% 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

Slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film' job openings is expected to rise 1.2% 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 24,460 people employed as 'Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 6 thousand people are employed as 'Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Film'.

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What people are saying (7)

Leave a comment
Noof (Highly likely)
09 Jan 2025 20:47
Focal marking and framing is already automated in many studios. Watched layoffs take this out over the last 10 years already. Soon it'll be film.
Mariusz (Moderate)
22 Jun 2023 22:19
I believe image upscaling, deepfake possibilities, and 3d scanning might in the future help AI to recreate hyperrealistic virtual reality based by data scanned by smartphones and animate it.
Anonymous (Moderate)
08 Jun 2023 21:41
Some aspects of camera operating and cinematography will be replaced by robots and AI. Particularly in the the more "creative" non-fiction fields as video generation from AI programs like DALLE-2 is only going to get better and easier to get it to do what you want.

Large chunks of productions are already left up to post, with MARVEL films having massive sections of their films which are completely finished in a computer. But there are certain real world aspects of cinematography and camera operating such as documentary and news coverage where there is no physical way to replace the DP or Director right now.

The AI or Robot would have to physically take a human form to talk and interview real world subjects, which will eventually happen, but not in the next 10-20 years
Sprankler Sabboth
31 Mar 2023 18:48
Not exactly how an AI is gonna film events, music videos, weddings, even shorts. Maybe when they are robots and can move in the 3d world
James (Moderate)
22 Feb 2022 20:09
Digital environments and completely digital production will drastically reduce the costs of filmmaking and will eliminate the need for real-world camera movement systems and operators.
Emmanuel Pleasant (No chance)
19 Nov 2019 18:57
The ability to do this certain job requires creativity, imagination, and certain technical skills. Without these things, the cinematographic film will never be as good if a robot does the job.
Le Reckless French Badger
10 Jul 2020 09:36
Don't worry we can lower your standards... And that is what we have seen in the past? With the lock down we have also seen that the audience worldwide does tolerate poorly framed and badly lit, self recorded program with a webcamish feel as long as it provided a sens of immediacy? Emmanuel Pleasant, still I do agree with you... certain job won't do without the human being being in control but I do expect a lot scaling down in quality. Filmmaking is more accessible than it ever has been : the good, the bad & the ugly...
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Job description

Operate television, video, or film camera to record images or scenes for television, video, or film productions.

O*NET-SOC code: 27-4031.00