Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors

Minimal Risk
Low High

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Why it fits

Uses student support, family communication, safeguarding awareness, referrals, records, and school resources with retraining.

Alternative careers

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Why it fits

Applies student needs, curriculum pathways, learning resources, assessment data, educator support, and program improvement.

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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
7.3/10
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

15% (Minimal Risk)

Minimal Risk (0-20%): This occupation appears difficult to replace end-to-end with current or near-future automation, including AI software and robotics. Roles in this range usually depend on human judgement, creativity, care, leadership, specialist expertise, or adapting to messy real-world situations. AI and machines may still change parts of the work, but the occupation is likely to remain a distinct human role.

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.

Social perceptiveness

Very 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

Very 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

Very 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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Consulting and advising others

Very important
Why this matters
Provide guidance and expert advice to managers or teams on technical, system, or process decisions—explaining options, tradeoffs, and recommended actions.
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Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
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Show 5 more strengths

Thinking creatively

Quite 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.
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Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
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Instructing

Quite 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.
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Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
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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 133 votes

29% 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 15% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors 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 Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors was $65,140 ($31 per hour).

The median annual wage for Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors was 31.6% 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

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors' job openings is expected to rise 3.5% 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

Significantly greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 342,350 people employed as 'Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors' within the United States.

This represents around 0.22% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 450 people are employed as 'Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors'.

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What people are saying (6)

Leave a comment
Cory
19 Apr 2025 21:25
(Possible) I’ve encountered lots of biased education workers they do idiotic things and encountered deans so unprofessional they should be fired immediately a machine isn’t biased and I think they can take a lot of jobs
Sam
27 Aug 2024 05:12
The need for careers guidance and education will only increase as AI and automation displace many workers or automatew many of the tasks they used to complete. Lifelong careers guidance will be important. Careers education in high school will be very important and only more so in this rapidly changing world of work.
Aron (Uncertain)
31 Jan 2023 00:06
Chatgpt and similar services could probably handle both answering any student-questions and do administrative tasks like sending paperwork.

But on the other hand people value the human connection when getting advice, and while an ai could give good answers, it might not be able to give the right questions. Questions tailored to the individual based on social queues and connection.

So i think somewhere in between.
Aaron (Moderate)
27 Dec 2022 22:33
This website is kinda exactly what will inform careers from now on.
Michele Lima Leal (Moderate)
21 Mar 2022 20:44
Because technology can always surprise us.

What if they create a robot capable of adapting, customizing responses, and advice according to the profile of each student?

But the interesting thing is that we can think about how to improve the customer experience and humanize professional relationships. Having a connection with people is essential to minimize these risks.
Jennifer Johnson (No chance)
07 Apr 2020 07:50
this job will never be taken over by robots because people prefer to talk to a human with feelings then a robot
Leave a reply about this occupation
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Job description

Advise and assist students and provide educational and vocational guidance services.

O*NET-SOC code: 21-1012.00