Surgical Technologists

Low Risk
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Why it fits

Directly reuses sterile technique, instruments, operating-room flow, surgeon coordination, counts, and procedure timing.

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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
5.8/10
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

30% (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.

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

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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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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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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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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Show 2 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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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 140 votes

46% 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 30% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Surgical Technologists 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 Surgical Technologists was $62,830 ($30 per hour).

The median annual wage for Surgical Technologists was 26.9% 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

Fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Surgical Technologists' job openings is expected to rise 4.5% 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

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 113,890 people employed as 'Surgical Technologists' within the United States.

This represents around 0.07% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 1 thousand people are employed as 'Surgical Technologists'.

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What people are saying (10)

Leave a comment
Brittany Pyanoe (Low)
01 Nov 2024 13:31
15 years in surgical technology. We could use robots to wash, sort and sterilize instruments but the dexterity and anticipation of surgeons needs, communication in advance, perception of risk and patient care will not be replaced
Cree (Highly likely)
15 Jul 2023 21:08
Surgical technologist have already been replaced. There is a new title, which is O.R. Aide, Surgical Care Assistant etc., The only difference is that both of these 'New' professions are not required to pass instruments to surgeons, at least, not yet. Robots will be able to do this (passing instruments to surgeons) in the very near future. Therefore, allowing O.R. techs, surgical care assistants to fully replace surgical technologist...and with lower pay.
Tim Huff (No chance)
09 Feb 2022 01:09
Anyone who knows anything about robotic assistant surgery and the scrub tech role and duties while scrubbed in during a robotic surgery knows there is a zero percent chance of this happening.
Anonymous (Highly likely)
28 Sep 2021 22:40
Not only do I think this will be replaced but also the surgeon too. Think about it, they’re already making robots capable of precise manual dexterity movements in sewing and carpentry, then can be precise during surgery and programmed. The only real human needed in this circumstance is the anesthesiologist to keep the patient asleep during the procedure. Why would a hospital pay a 6 figure plus salary to a surgeon or 40-50,000 to the assistant when they can just have a robot do it for free? Have to remember most hospitals are “for-profit”
Li (Low)
02 Dec 2020 06:21
The robots are controlled my surgeons so creating a whole robot that has accuracy reliability and validity in operating on a patient and process the information of a human body properly is very unlikely. Also I feel like people would want to have human surgeons from the start anyways since they are not going to appear as reliable when they get introduced
Mitchelle (Moderate)
11 Aug 2020 00:31
Well, I think robots are likely to replace surgeons because as the time technology is getting better and better with time so robots can take our jobs and even do it better than us too.
Dimitri (Low)
08 Mar 2020 12:22
Surgery sees a great deal of robotic devices these days, but those robotics are not AI, they are operated by surgeons. In order for the job to become fully automated, robotics would need to reach a point where they could read situations and make decisions on their own, and the patients would need to trust those decisions with their lives. That's something that I think is very far off.
Grace (Uncertain)
05 Oct 2019 13:46
Well, Humans are really good at this stuff if you go to college. And they could code some robot to know how to preform surgeries.
Rina (Moderate)
11 Jul 2019 20:22
Because robotics is being introduced into this profession very quickly now
Lu
02 Dec 2020 06:19
Except the robotics are still being operated by surgeons so it’s gonna less likely to create a reliable AI robot to do surgeries completely coz that’s something that need accuracy, reliability and validity in processing information of the patient as well as operation with accuracy and reliability
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Job description

Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel. May help set up operating room, prepare and transport patients for surgery, adjust lights and equipment, pass instruments and other supplies to surgeons and surgeons' assistants, hold retractors, cut sutures, and help count sponges, needles, supplies, and instruments.

O*NET-SOC code: 29-2055.00