Compliance Officer
| Median wage (USD) | 80730 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | 4 |
| AI exposure (%) | 61 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 77 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Regulatory monitoring, compliance reports and routine correspondence are automated Document review, anomaly detection and case preparation move to AI assistance, under supervision Judging a situation against the rules, investigating it and deciding whether to report it remain human |
| Key skills | Augmented compliance · tooled regulatory monitoring (search, synthesis, alerting) · document review and anomaly detection · investigation and case management · GRC tools, dashboards and regulatory reporting |
| Courses to get ahead | What is Compliance? · Coursera · 4 weeks, 3-4 hours per week · 93 · The foundation of the job: what a compliance program is, why it exists and what it protects. It is the frame that lets you judge a situation against the rules — the call AI suggests but does not own. Effective Compliance Programs · Coursera · 4 weeks, 3-4 hours per week · 90 · The course that matches the gesture that is changing: documenting, implementing and communicating policies that AI now drafts with you. You learn to design the program and own it, instead of producing its paperwork. Auditing I: Conceptual Foundations of Auditing · Coursera · 3 weeks, 10 hours per week · 86 · The counterpart of compliance: the audit. The course covers the demand for high-quality auditing, assertions and evidence — exactly what you must provide to internal or external auditors, and what AI cannot attest on your behalf. Privacy Law and Data Protection · Coursera · 4 weeks, 3-4 hours per week · 82 Introduction to Generative AI · Coursera · 1 week, about 1 hour · 78 Cybersecurity for Everyone · Coursera · 4 weeks · 74 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Accountant or Auditor · 83680 · 5 · 52 Financial Examiner · 94160 · 9 · 58 Management Analyst · 101860 · 10 · 50 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou measures this occupation's exposure at 61% (human β) and up to 77% (human ζ): document review, report preparation, routine correspondence, regulatory monitoring and checking that policies are documented and communicated are largely delegable to AI, but judging a situation against the rules, investigating a compliance issue, warning violators and reporting to the authorities remain human. The ζ of 77% says more than three quarters of the job are at least partly transformable; the β of 61% says that today AI does close to three fifths of it without supervision. Within the repository, the compliance officer sits above the accountant and auditor (52), the paralegal (45) and the administrative assistant (57), but well behind the tax examiner (68): this is the signature of a control job — what gets automated is reading the rules, formal checking and drafting, what resists is qualifying a situation and deciding what follows. Method note: O*NET still files licence-examiner tasks under this code (13-1041.00 "Compliance Officers", updated 2026) — issuing licences, collecting fees, administering tests — alongside the four recently added compliance tasks (identify compliance issues, keep informed of industry changes, assist auditors, verify that policies are documented and communicated); both families are kept as they stand on the card. The GPT-4 self-rated series (β 68, ζ 91) is kept in expositionGpt4 and is not displayed, in line with the decision of 21 August 2026. BLS growth is +4% from 2025 to 2035 for compliance officers (SOC 13-1041): their 436,400 jobs in 2025 are projected to reach 453,100, about 16,700 more, with roughly 32,700 openings each year, most of them from replacing workers who leave. BLS ties this demand to the duty of businesses and government agencies to comply with numerous and complex regulations, and to the need to avoid the costs of noncompliance: this is a job anchored in the rules, not in the economic cycle. For comparison, the "business operations specialists" group in which BLS files this occupation grows 6%, and all occupations 3% over the same period. This card's three pivots point the same way: the financial examiner grows 9% and the management analyst 10%, while the accountant or auditor follows at 5%. The compliance officer's median salary is $80,730 a year ($38.81 an hour): the May 2025 figure from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for code 13-1041, identical to the one published on the occupation's O*NET page. The lowest 10% earn less than $48,220 and the highest 10% more than $133,720. The industry changes the figure a lot: $91,960 in professional, scientific and technical services, $89,290 in manufacturing, $82,310 in finance and insurance, $81,540 in government (excluding state and local education and hospitals) and $72,580 in healthcare and social assistance. For context: all occupations stand at $50,980 and the "business operations specialists" group at $82,060 — so the compliance officer is level with the group and well above the overall median. The three pivots bracket the card: accountant or auditor $83,680, financial examiner $94,160, management analyst $101,860. |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 68 · 91 |