FiFoDiDo Editorial · 1 October 2026

Mining's Next Big Job Boom Could Be in Automation: Here's What Workers Need to Know

Automation isn't just cutting mining jobs, it's creating new ones. Here's which roles are growing and which skills matter now.

The easy story about mining automation is that it destroys jobs: the haul truck driver gets replaced by an autonomous truck, the drill operator gets replaced by remote-controlled equipment, and the industry quietly gets smaller. It is a story with just enough truth in it to be believable, and just enough missing to be wrong.

Rio Tinto's Pilbara haulage fleet is now more than 90 percent autonomous. BHP's South Flank mine runs fully automated haul trucks. Both of those facts are real, and both represent genuine job losses in traditional driving roles. But over the same period, demand for data analysts and AI-related specialists in mining grew 135 percent between 2019 and October 2025. Job boards currently list mining automation and autonomous mining roles in the hundreds, spanning controls and automation engineers, mine controllers, autonomous haulage and drilling specialists, automation performance managers and field service engineers.

Automation is not simply subtracting mining jobs. It is relocating them, and in the process, changing what skills are valuable.

What is actually changing on site

Three shifts are driving most of the change in mining employment right now.

Autonomous haulage and drilling. Trucks and drills that once required an operator physically in the cab are increasingly controlled remotely or run pre-programmed routes, with human oversight rather than continuous manual control.

Remote operations centres. A growing share of mine operation, particularly for large iron ore and coal producers, happens from centralised control rooms that can be hundreds or thousands of kilometres from the pit itself, staffed by controllers monitoring multiple systems at once.

Sensors, data and machine learning. Modern mines generate enormous volumes of operational data, from equipment health to ore grade to haul cycle times, and increasingly rely on people who can interpret and act on that data rather than simply record it.

Each of these shifts eliminates some tasks and creates others. A haul truck driver's job does not simply vanish; parts of it move into maintenance, into remote monitoring, and into the technical roles that keep autonomous systems running.

The roles growing underneath the headlines

Beyond the visible autonomous trucks, the roles expanding fastest tend to sit in a handful of categories: controls and automation engineers who design and maintain the systems running autonomous equipment; mine controllers who operate remote operations centres; automation and instrumentation technicians who keep sensors, networks and control systems functioning on site; field service engineers who maintain automated equipment in the field when something goes wrong remotely; and data and reliability analysts who turn operational data into decisions about maintenance, safety and production.

None of these are hypothetical categories. They are showing up in job listings right now, in real numbers, across Australia's major mining regions.

The skills gap is real, and it cuts both ways

The honest complication here is that most experienced FIFO workers were not trained for knowledge-based, data-driven roles, and the industry's own reporting acknowledges this directly: mining's challenge is increasingly described as a skills gap rather than a jobs shortage. There are roles available. There are not always enough people trained to fill them.

That gap is genuinely difficult for workers whose skills were built around manual operation of equipment that is progressively being automated. It is also, for anyone willing to reskill, a real opportunity, because demand for the right combination of skills is currently outpacing supply.

You do not need to become a software engineer

The most important thing to understand about this shift is that it does not require every mining worker to become a coder. The roles created by automation sit heavily at the intersection of traditional trade and engineering skills and newer digital skills, not purely in software.

Electricians and instrumentation technicians are often best placed of anyone on site to move into automation and controls work, since much of it is an extension of the electrical and instrumentation trade rather than a separate discipline.

Mechanical tradespeople who understand the physical machinery being automated bring knowledge that a purely IT-trained specialist does not have, and remain essential to maintaining automated equipment.

Experienced operators who understand how a pit or a plant actually runs, in practice, are valuable in automation projects precisely because they know what "normal" looks like and can spot when a system is behaving oddly.

People with an aptitude for data and digital tools, even without formal qualifications, can build genuinely valuable skills through vendor training, TAFE courses and on-the-job exposure to control systems and data platforms.

The pattern across all of these is combination rather than replacement: practical mining or trade knowledge, plus a working competency in the digital and automation tools now built into modern sites.

What this means for your next move

If you are early in a mining career, it is worth treating automation and controls exposure as a genuine specialisation to build toward, in the same way people once specialised in a particular type of fixed plant or mobile equipment. If you are a tradesperson, particularly electrical or instrumentation, automation is a natural and valuable extension of your existing ticket rather than a separate career. If you are an experienced operator concerned about being automated out of a role, look sideways into maintenance, monitoring and training functions tied to the automated systems replacing manual operation, where site knowledge remains genuinely valuable.

Automation is reshaping mining employment, not simply shrinking it. Industry forecasts point to tens of thousands of new mining and resources jobs over the rest of this decade, and a meaningful share of them will sit in and around automation, data and controls, alongside traditional operational and trade roles. The workers who benefit most will be the ones who treat that shift as a skills problem to solve early, rather than a threat to wait out.

Whether you are building toward an automation specialisation or looking to move sideways from an operator role, FiFoDiDo brings together mining, resources and energy jobs, including the growing number of automation and controls positions, in one place. Candidates can create a free profile, set alerts for roles matching their skills, and it costs nothing to do so.