Jobs / Office and administrative support / 43-5041.00
Meter Readers, Utilities
Read meter and record consumption of electricity, gas, water, or steam.
- US jobs
- 19,430
- Median wage
- $48,150 a year
- Job family
- Office and administrative support
Can agents do the work of meter readers, utilities?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Office and administrative support:
- Task levelStrongOn computer-use and office-task benchmarks, top agents pass most tasks: 90.2% on OSWorld-Verified (humans: 72.4%), 83.1% on SpreadsheetBench, and 63.3% on WorkArena L1 under the standard protocol. Limits: many top entries are self-submitted and not re-run by the maintainers, and on TheAgentCompany's multi-step workplace tasks the best agent resolves 42.9%.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's GDPval deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons, but GDPval tasks are one-shot and fully specified. No benchmark in our collection tests multi-day administrative work, such as running a calendar or a purchasing process.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in office and administrative support, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
- OSWorld-Verifiedby HKU, Salesforce AI Research, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Waterloo90.2%Intelligence-Indeed Agent · 25 Jul 2026Saturated
- 42.9%TTE-MatrixAgent + DeepSeek-V3.2 · 10 Nov 2025Emerging
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Read electric, gas, water, or steam consumption meters and enter data in route books or hand-held computers.
- Upload into office computers all information collected on hand-held computers during meter rounds, or return route books or hand-held computers to business offices so that data can be compiled.
- Walk or drive vehicles along established routes to take readings of meter dials.
- Verify readings in cases where consumption appears to be abnormal, and record possible reasons for fluctuations.
- Install new or replace broken meters.
- Inspect meters for unauthorized connections, defects, and damage, such as broken seals.
- Perform preventative maintenance or minor repairs on meters.
- Answer customers' questions about services and charges, or direct them to customer service centers.
- Report to service departments any problems, such as meter irregularities, damaged equipment, or impediments to meter access, including dogs.
- Leave messages to arrange different times to read meters in cases in which meters are not accessible.
- Dig dirt away from meters to take readings.
- Report lost or broken keys.
Other job titles for this occupation (23)
Field Technician (Field Tech) · Meter Reader · Meter Reading Clerk · Meter Service Technician (Meter Service Tech) · Meter Service Worker · Meter Technician (Meter Tech) · Utility Service Worker · Water Inspector · Water Meter Reader · Water Use Inspector · Electric Meter Reader · Gas Meter Reader · Meter Installer · Meter Record Clerk · Meter Service Representative (Meter Service Rep) · Meterman · Service Worker · Steam Meter Reader · Utilities Technician (Utilities Tech) · Utility Locator · Utility Meter Technician (Utility Meter Tech) · Utility Technician (Utility Tech) · Utility Worker