Will AI replace deckhands in Singapore?
AI is unlikely to replace deckhands in Singapore any time soon. The work is hands-on: handling ropes, moving cargo, doing maintenance and working alongside the crew on a vessel that is always moving. Software can help with planning routes, schedules and paperwork, but a person still has to be on board, using their hands and reacting to changing weather, water and cargo. Over a longer time, automation in ports could change how many deckhands are needed, but the daily work itself stays largely the same.
Why it scores 1
Deckhands perform fundamentally physical work requiring real-time presence on vessels—rope work, cargo handling, maintenance, and coordination with crew in dynamic maritime environments. These hands-on tasks with hard barriers to automation (physical manipulation, situational responsiveness) are structurally similar to other manual roles like refuse collectors and kitchen porters. While port automation and autonomous vessel operations pose distant indirect threats to demand, the core work remains grounded in physical skill and presence.
The score reads the job title, not you. Your own exposure depends on your tasks, employer and tools. A high score means the daily work changes, not that the job disappears.
What deckhands can do
Keep your seamanship skills sharp
Rope work, mooring and safe cargo handling are the heart of the job and are hard to automate. Practise them often and learn from the more experienced crew around you.
Learn to use onboard digital tools
Crews already use screens and apps for cargo records, safety checks and messages. Getting comfortable with these makes you more useful and saves time on paperwork.
Add skills that lead to senior roles
Look into SkillsFuture options that build on your sea experience, such as equipment maintenance or supervising a work team. These keep you in demand if port operations change.
Similar jobs
Other jobs in the Drivers & mobile plant operators group, largest first.
See where deckhands sit among all 481 jobs, and how their group has grown or shrunk.
See it on the mapWhere these numbers come from
- Pay: MOM Occupational Wages 2024, Table 4. Median and 25th–75th percentile gross monthly wage of full-time resident employees, June 2024, worked out across industries. MOM has no newer figure for this job, so the June 2024 one is shown.
- Jobs: estimated by spreading SingStat's employment totals (M182081) evenly across the occupations in each industry. Treat it as an order of magnitude.
- Group trend: change in employed residents in the Drivers & mobile plant operators group, 2021 to 2025 (MOM Labour Force in Singapore, Table D8). It is measured for the whole group, not this job alone.
- AI exposure: scored 0–10 against a calibrated rubric by Huper Technology. How the score works.
- Advice: written for this page from the score and its reasons. It is general guidance, not career advice for your situation.
Cite as: Huper Technology, “Deckhand (including lighterman)”, AI Exposure of the Singapore Job Market, https://jobs.huper.technology/jobs/deckhand/ (CC BY 4.0). SSOC 2020 code 83502.