Purchasing Agents
(Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products)

Low Risk
Low High

Explore safer careers (2)

Lower estimated automation risk

Purchasing Managers
21% automation risk | Low Risk
Pays better
7.8 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Direct advancement using supplier negotiations, contracts, purchasing policy, cost control, and procurement planning.

Supply Chain Managers
21% automation risk | Low Risk
Pays better
7.6 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Reuses sourcing, supplier performance, materials flow, contracts, inventory needs, and cross-functional coordination.

Alternative careers

Related career paths that build on similar skills and experience

Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products
38% automation risk | Low Risk
View career
Why it fits

Purchasing process, negotiations, supplier evaluation, contracts, and quality factors transfer to farm products.

Cost Estimators
32% automation risk | Low Risk
View career
Why it fits

Reuses supplier quotes, specifications, materials costs, bid comparison, and cost documentation.

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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
6.0/10
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

29% (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.

Negotiation

Very 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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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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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

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.
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Show 4 more strengths

Coaching and developing others

Quite important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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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.
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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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 48 votes

52% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. However, employees may be able to find reassurance in the automated risk level we have generated, which shows 29% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

View sentiment trend

Pay & outlook

Wages

High paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Buyers and Purchasing Agents was $75,650 ($36 per hour).

The median annual wage for Buyers and Purchasing Agents was 52.8% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Buyers and Purchasing Agents' job openings is expected to rise 5.8% by 2034

* 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 486,900 people employed as 'Buyers and Purchasing Agents' within the United States.

This represents around 0.32% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 316 people are employed as 'Buyers and Purchasing Agents'.

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What people are saying (3)

Zack (Low)
24 Dec 2025 03:18
No supplier is going to listen to a robot for why they should sell their raw materials/supplies for 30% off. This requires careful negoation, human interaction and understanding.
CurrentPurchasingAgent (Highly likely)
29 Jan 2023 20:19
It's more so that those in this profession would need to transition into a data analyst role.

I see fewer companies listening to "the gist of it" without data to back it up, and negotiations would start requiring the effective use of available data to justify benefits in a trade.

The remaining 80% of the role (quotes, purchase orders, follow-ups) is procedural and ripe for automation.

The negotiators might stay if they can make good use of data, but I can see the title disappearing.
Zack
24 Dec 2025 03:19
"quotes, purchase orders, follow-ups) is procedural and ripe for automation." ERP systems have been doing this for years and we still have Procurement Professionals not automated away?
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Job description

Purchase machinery, equipment, tools, parts, supplies, or services necessary for the operation of an establishment. Purchase raw or semifinished materials for manufacturing. May negotiate contracts.

O*NET-SOC code: 13-1023.00