Credit: Adobe Stock
We Asked AI To Rank Tradies From Best To Worst And The Results Are Brutal
We asked AI to rank who the best and the worst of the tradesmen were, and the results were absolutely savage.
Disclaimer: This is not a serious ranking of skill, graft, or value. Every trade here is essential. This is purely based on internet opinion and cultural stereotypes. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Let’s be honest: every tradie thinks their trade is the hardest, the most skilled, and the most criminally underappreciated. Brickies reckon they built civilisation. Sparkies think they’re keeping it alive. Plumbers believe they’re the only thing standing between your home and a full-blown biohazard situation. They’re all, to varying degrees, correct.
So naturally, we did the one thing nobody asked for: we got AI to rank them all anyway.
Here’s the totally unscientific, completely roastable result. Before the comments explode: this ranking isn’t about who works hardest. It’s about who the internet respects most, who gets taken for granted, and who only gets appreciated when something goes horribly wrong.
The gold medal goes to… electricians
Electricians sit at the top of the pile, and honestly? They know it.
Electricity scares people. It’s invisible, it’s deadly, and nobody really understands how it works. That means anyone who can control it gets treated with the quiet reverence normally reserved for surgeons and people who can parallel park the first time.
Sparkies are seen as more technical, more regulated, and, crucially, less messy than most other trades. If they get it wrong, you might die. So people tend to respect them accordingly.
Online, electricians are treated like the private school kids of the trades: same job site as everyone else, somehow perceived as a cut above.
The roast: electricians never stop reminding everyone they’re ‘fully qualified,’ right up until you see the state of the wiring behind the fuse box.
Plumbers: The emergency hero nobody appreciates until 2 am
Nobody thinks about plumbers. Then the toilet starts flooding the kitchen at midnight, and suddenly they’re the most important human beings on the planet.
Plumbers rank this high for one simple reason: when you need one, you really need one.
They fix the most immediately disgusting problems in your home, they do it in the middle of the night, and they somehow walk away as the hero of the household despite arriving an hour late and charging you for three parts you’ve never heard of.
Culturally, plumbers are the most relatable tradies. Everyone has a horror story. Everyone has rung one in a mild state of panic. That shared trauma creates a strange kind of emotional bond that no other trade quite replicates.
The roast: they turn up late, list parts that sound made up, and still manage to be the person you call first in a crisis. Respect.
Mechanics: Trusted with your life and your wallet
Mechanics occupy a unique space: they are simultaneously some of the most trusted and most distrusted people. You hand over your car, and often your entire ability to function, and hope for the best.
The problem is that nobody understands what mechanics are actually doing.
They speak a language of their own invention, charge for parts that sound fictional, and give you that slow nod that means either ‘this is a simple fix’ or ‘this is going to be very expensive.’ You’ll find out which one when the invoice arrives.
Still, mechanics are genuinely respected. They’re the gatekeepers of whether your MOT costs fifty quid or remortgages your house, and that kind of power demands a grudging admiration.
Grafters who deserve more credit
Carpenters and joiners sit just below the podium, wrapped in an aura of old-school craftsmanship.
Everyone assumes carpentry is ‘just cutting wood’ – right up until they try to hang a door straight and end up with something that only closes if you shoulder-charge it. Carpenters quietly judge every wonky shelf you own, and they’re right to.
Welders and fabricators make the list purely on the strength of looking absolutely incredible on camera.
Sparks flying, masks down, molten metal, welding has a cinematic quality that punches well above its cultural recognition. Nobody really knows how it works, but everyone agrees it looks cool.
Roofers deserve far more credit than they get.
Anyone willing to work at height, in the elements, deserves a medal.
The roast writes itself: they’re always ‘nearly finished’ for three weeks straight. But they’re working on your roof. In February. Give them a break.
Bricklayers do the kind of graft you can actually point at and say, ‘yeah, I built that,’ and then never get acknowledged for it again because walls are just… there.
They’re the backbone of every site and somehow the most invisible once the job’s done. If your house is still standing, thank a bricklayer. Even if nobody ever does.
The underappreciated brigade
Plasterers make everything look good and get blamed for everything that follows.
They coat your home in dust, turn it into a construction zone for three days, and vanish before you can ask how long it needs to dry. Behind every freshly painted wall is a plasterer who deserves more credit.
Painters and decorators sit unfairly low on every list because everyone thinks they can do it themselves, until they try, end up with paint on the ceiling, the floor, and somehow the dog, and have to ring a professional anyway.
Decorators are last on site, first to be blamed, and permanently treated like they’re ‘just colouring in.’
Floor layers and tilers spend days on their knees creating perfectly level surfaces that get immediately destroyed by someone dropping a sofa on them. No one notices good flooring.
Everyone notices bad flooring. These two facts coexist without the trade ever getting the appreciation it deserves.
Dead last: The handyman
The handyman finishes bottom, and not without reason.
Handymen exist in a permanent state of suspicion.
They either save your entire house in one afternoon, or they arrive with more confidence than competence and leave behind a bigger problem than they started with. There is genuinely no in-between.
They own every tool ever invented and still somehow need to borrow yours.
The handyman is Schrödinger’s tradie: both a lifesaver and a walking disaster until proven otherwise.
Before the comments section combusts: every trade on this list is essential, genuinely skilled, and deserves respect.
The brickie who built your house. The sparkie who keeps the lights on. The plumber at 2am. The roofer doing it all again in the wind.
This ranking isn’t about who works hardest — it’s about perception, panic, and who only gets appreciated when something goes catastrophically wrong.
And if you’re offended by where your trade landed?
Congratulations. You’re officially a tradie.
Related Article: People Are Just Realizing What The GPT In ChatGPT Stands For
Related Article: AI Creates What An ‘Average Man’ From Each Country Looks Like – And People Aren’t Happy
Want more stuff like this?
Get the best viral stories straight into your inbox!
