Jobs / Design, media, and writing / 27-3042.00
Technical Writers
Write technical materials, such as equipment manuals, appendices, or operating and maintenance instructions. May assist in layout work.
- US jobs
- 45,500
- Median wage
- $90,390 a year
- Job family
- Design, media, and writing
Can agents do the work of technical writers?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Design, media, and writing:
- Task levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. OSWorld-Verified includes tasks in image, slide, and document apps, and the best agent passes 90.2% of all its computer tasks. No task-level benchmark in our collection scores the quality of design or writing work.
- Project levelNot yetOn the Remote Labor Index, which includes graphic design, video, 3D, audio, and web projects from freelance platforms, the best agent completed 15.8% of projects to a standard a client would accept. GDPval deliverables score higher (84.9% wins or ties against professionals, reported by OpenAI), but those tasks are one-shot and fully specified.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in design, media, and writing, 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
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Organize material and complete writing assignment according to set standards regarding order, clarity, conciseness, style, and terminology.
- Maintain records and files of work and revisions.
- Edit, standardize, or make changes to material prepared by other writers or establishment personnel.
- Analyze developments in specific field to determine need for revisions in previously published materials and development of new material.
- Review published materials and recommend revisions or changes in scope, format, content, and methods of reproduction and binding.
- Select photographs, drawings, sketches, diagrams, and charts to illustrate material.
- Confer with customer representatives, vendors, plant executives, or publisher to establish technical specifications and to determine subject material to be developed for publication.
- Assist in laying out material for publication.
- Study drawings, specifications, mockups, and product samples to integrate and delineate technology, operating procedure, and production sequence and detail.
- Arrange for typing, duplication, and distribution of material.
- Develop or maintain online help documentation.
- Review manufacturer's and trade catalogs, drawings and other data relative to operation, maintenance, and service of equipment.
Other job titles for this occupation (29)
Com Writer · Engineering Writer · Global Technical Writer · Grant Writer · Medical Writer · Narrative Writer · Principal Technical Writer · Requirements Analyst · Technical Report Writer · Assembly Instructions Writer · Clinical Writer · Contracts Writer · Documentation Writer · Handbook Writer · Health Science Writer · Health Technical Writer · Lexicographer · Manual Writer · Medical Technical Writer · Process Description Writer · Proposal Writer · Regulatory Medical Writer · Report Writer · Scientific Writer · Specifications Writer · Technical Proposal Writer · Technical Publications Writer · Technician Writer · UX Writer (User Experience Writer)