Sound Engineering Technicians

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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
4.6/10
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

37% (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.
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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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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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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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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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Show 2 more strengths

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 185 votes

33% 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 37% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Sound Engineering Technicians 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 Sound Engineering Technicians was $66,430 ($32 per hour).

The median annual wage for Sound Engineering Technicians was 34.2% 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 'Sound Engineering Technicians' job openings is expected to decline 1.7% 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

Significantly lower range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 13,050 people employed as 'Sound Engineering Technicians' within the United States.

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

Put another way, around 1 in 11 thousand people are employed as 'Sound Engineering Technicians'.

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What people are saying (8)

Leave a comment
Nils
23 Sep 2025 12:41
Someone once said, 'You should never say never,' and for that reason, I won't say that robots will never be able to do some parts of a sound engineer's job. However, there is one very specific aspect to this work that is only human for the foreseeable future, and that is emotion. Music, whether it is live or on a record, is basically an emotional product. I can't see robots developing emotions like humans any time soon.
Ultimately, the entire argument hinges on one monumental 'if': whether developers will ever be able to crack the code of the 'human element' itself—genuine consciousness, subjectivity, and emotion. The big 'what if' in all of this, of course, is whether the core of the human experience—emotion, artistic intent, and consciousness—is something that can be reverse-engineered at all. Until that question is answered, the creative core of this job remains uniquely human. I don't think our jobs are going anywhere anytime soon.
Audrey Gardner (Uncertain)
03 Jan 2024 18:16
Sound engineering requires not only creativity, but it also has niches and processes that only humans can emulate. The reason I'm uncertain on this, is because of the recent spike in music and sound related AI generation.
Laszlo
24 Sep 2019 15:45
This is my dream job. I'm constantly working towards it for years. I think every song and every audio engineer is different. And that is the beauty of this. We don't need computer programs to do the mixing and mastering... That would kill the creativity behind a song. And this occupation is full of emotions. The artist puts his/her emotions into the song. The mixing engineer receieves them and puts a little bit of him/herself into the final "product". I don't want songs to sound nearly the same all the time... So I will constantly fight against automation in this field! Please don't take my dream job away!!!
Lawrence (Highly likely)
16 Aug 2019 20:14
As someone has said here...when you see what RX can do now in the program's infancy, and you follow the logical conclusion...it's clear to see plugins and presets are going to be the way of the future. I work with RX every day at an Audiobook production house. People with no engineering training are able to mass process, or batch process, all sorts of voices. Does it sound perfect? Not yet. Is it far off? Not at all.
copaceaenu stefan (No chance)
24 Jun 2019 21:01
because any song u need to mix have another structure, and there are over 1 million songs or maybe more and a robot can't learn that much
Raf (Uncertain)
11 May 2019 16:07
When I see what rx can do in post, I'm forced to admit that the job gonna be more automated.
Jared (No chance)
20 Apr 2019 12:16
Robots can't do my job.
Jessica (Uncertain)
10 Apr 2019 05:49
A great deal of shows are already automated, it's just mostly limited to cruise ships at the moment
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Job description

Assemble and operate equipment to record, synchronize, mix, edit, or reproduce sound, including music, voices, or sound effects, for theater, video, film, television, podcasts, sporting events, and other productions.

O*NET-SOC code: 27-4014.00