Biomedical Engineer

Biomedical engineers design medical devices and the technology around them: artificial joints, prosthetics, imaging machines, patient monitors, lab equipment. A large part of the job happens at a desk: running simulations, analyzing test and signal data, reading research, and writing the detailed documents regulators require before a device can be sold. AI is good at exactly those tasks. A 2025 Microsoft Research study measured how much of each job's tasks AI chatbots can help with, using 200,000 real conversations. Biomedical engineers came out in the top eighth of 785 jobs, a little above software developers and mechanical engineers. Our rubric counts that as risk even when AI is "just a tool": when each engineer with AI gets through more of this work, teams need fewer junior engineers. In a field this small, that matters. BLS expects only about 1,200 openings a year across the whole country. That is why we moved this from a 2 to a 3.

It is not higher because much of the work is physical and closely regulated. Devices have to be built, tested and cleared by the FDA before they can be sold. Demand is also growing for a lasting reason: BLS projects 8% growth from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all jobs, as more people need medical devices and procedures such as hip and knee replacements. AI is also creating work here. The FDA's public list of AI-enabled medical devices has more than 1,600 entries, 335 of them authorized in 2025 alone, and each one had to be designed, tested and taken through FDA review. The Microsoft researchers also warn that a high score does not by itself mean job losses.

What would change this score. If new biomedical engineering graduates keep finding jobs at the same rate over the next few years, it goes back to 2. If device companies start cutting junior engineering and regulatory roles as AI writes more of the analysis and documentation, it goes up.