Driller
Also called earth driller, assistant driller, drillers assistant
Drillers set up and operate drilling rigs and related equipment designed to drill holes for mineral exploration, in shotfiring operations, and for construction purposes.
What you'd do
Miners and quarriers · ILO- Positioning, operating and monitoring the performance of a variety of underground and surface mining equipment including continuous mining, cutting and channelling plant
- Setting up and operating drilling equipment in underground and surface mines and quarries
- Operating machinery and using hand or power tools to remove loosened rock, ore, coal and other deposits
- Preparing, fitting and installing supports in underground workings including rock bolts
- Operating machinery to open new shafts, drives, air vents and rises
- Operating auxiliary plant such as pumps to expel air, water and mud
- Performing minor maintenance and repairs and lubricating and cleaning plant, machines and tools
- Completing records detailing operations completed during shifts
- Collecting mineral samples for laboratory analysis
- Mostly outdoors
- On your feet most of the day
- Lots of contact with people
- Good freedom to decide
- Often more than 40 hours a week
- Deadlines most weeks
- Very repetitive tasks
Will there be jobs?
Limited prospectsFewer jobs than in most work will need filling by 2035.
Solid: measured. Dashed: forecast.
What does it pay?
About averagePay depends a lot on the country: from about €1,000 a month (Bulgaria) to €5,500 (Denmark), before tax.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see typical pay there, for people under 30, and compared with all jobs.
Among plant and machine operators, and assemblers in the EU, women earn 21% less per hour than men. Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · Eurostat
What do I need to study?
Upper secondary or vocationalUpper secondary or vocational training is the usual route.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see where to study and the official course finders.
Will AI change it?
Very littleAI could help with only small parts of the tasks.
Average task score 0.17 on a scale from 0 (AI can't do it) to 1 (AI could do it fully).
See the score for each of the 9 tasks
Based on what AI could technically do when assessed in 2025. It is not a forecast for a future year, and not a forecast of job losses. Scores for miners and quarriers. Source: ILO (2025), adapted (credits).