Elementary School Teachers
(Except Special Education)

Minimal Risk
Low High

Explore safer careers (2)

Lower estimated automation risk

Special Education Teachers, Elementary School
6% automation risk | Minimal Risk
6.5 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Transfers lesson adaptation, behavior support, family communication, IEP collaboration, progress tracking, and student advocacy.

Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education
6% automation risk | Minimal Risk
5.9 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Applies early literacy, routines, social development, classroom safety, parent communication, assessment, and differentiated teaching.

Alternative careers

Related career paths that build on similar skills and experience

Instructional Coordinators
19% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Pays better Higher growth
View career
Why it fits

Applies curriculum standards, lesson design, teacher coaching, assessment data, materials review, and school improvement work.

Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education
12% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Similar risk View career
Why it fits

Directly reuses classroom management, lesson planning, assessment, curriculum standards, family contact, and student support.

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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
6.3/10
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

12% (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.

Assisting and caring for others

Very 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.
Jobs that also use this strength

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

Education and training expertise

Very important
Why this matters
Designing and delivering instruction—adapting lessons to different learners and measuring whether training actually works.
Jobs that also use this strength

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.
Jobs that also use this strength

Persuasion

Quite important
Why this matters
Influencing people to change their minds or behavior through conversation, trust, and negotiation.
Jobs that also use this strength
Show 5 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.
Jobs that also use this strength

Coordinating others’ work

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together, assigning tasks, and keeping a group aligned so work gets done.
Jobs that also use this strength

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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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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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 317 votes

28% 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 12% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education 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 Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education was $62,340 ($30 per hour).

The median annual wage for Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education was 25.9% 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 'Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education' job openings is expected to decline 2.0% 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 1,393,310 people employed as 'Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education' within the United States.

This represents around 0.9% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 110 people are employed as 'Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education'.

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What people are saying (12)

Leave a comment
. (Low)
02 Jul 2024 01:01
Because you will always need teachers, but you never know with technology.
Mike (Low)
17 Jul 2022 04:47
Even with technology, someone still has to be there to facilitate learning for the kids. Additionally, disciplinary actions must be employed for those who goof off or don't show interest in learning.
Ket Autor (Uncertain)
24 Oct 2021 02:43
The interaction of teacher and student is very important in learning. There may be an advantage of it (robotics) but there are lots of disadvantages. 1. Students may not have the opportunity to bond with their teacher, since teachers are our second parent in school, 2. Let's always bare in mind that robots are being manipulated by man, meaning authentic learning from an authentic human is really needed because of it's experiences being shared to students.
Sofia (No chance)
13 May 2021 13:40
Robots can never take a teacher's job. I think that people are too paranoid about this AI/robotics madness.
Kait (No chance)
14 Apr 2021 20:03
You need humans to teach humans lol
Homokiné Czövek Henrietta (Moderate)
30 Jan 2021 12:42
Even with technology, there is a need for a teacher who makes learning easier.
Jamalia
06 May 2020 09:44
For me, interaction with the teacher personally is still the best way of learning process. We may use technologies as our references.
Aaron
03 Dec 2019 20:38
Khan Academy and MOOC's are the future of education. AI can easily determine if young people are learning. At least in my opinion.
ThatPerson
21 May 2026 01:45
Yeah but kids still need social interaction, and connection and friends to learn with.
Aaron (Highly likely)
03 Dec 2019 20:30
With the internet it's possible to have education entirely online. Tablets, smart phones etc. etc. Khan academy for example.
National Teacher Shortage Crisis (Uncertain)
01 Jul 2019 08:53
There's a national teacher shortage. 50% of all new teachers are projected to leave the profession within their first 5 years. Experienced teachers are running from the profession and fewer every year are entering it. This is a national crisis everyone's ignoring. Eventually it will sink in and people will start looking for solutions. In our current culture, that solution certainly doesn't lean towards incentivizing new teachers to enter and stay in the profession. What do you do to fix this problem? The answer that's easy, that causes the least disruption, that requires the least change in the system, that is cost effective, is automation. What seems more likely? Drastic cultural and systematic change, or people like Mark Zuckerberg, who have literally said they are investing in the development of these educational technologies, actually taking advantage of new market and filling the demand with automation?
Gabriela Kypuros
25 Jan 2023 22:35
Is an AI able to display empathy or inspire students?
Do we want empaths ( AI ) to teach children about social skills
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Job description

Teach academic and social skills to students at the elementary school level.

O*NET-SOC code: 25-2021.00