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Substitute Teachers, Short-Term vs Teaching Assistants, Special Education

Side-by-side · O*NET · BLS · AI-exposure research · Anthropic Economic Index

A factual, source-backed comparison of Substitute Teachers, Short-Term and Teaching Assistants, Special Education on the dimensions both occupations carry. Every figure is a position within an independent published dataset — not a verdict on which job is better, safer, or more “future-proof.”

Substitute Teachers, Short-Term Teaching Assistants, Special Education
Median pay · BLS OEWS
$38,470
Employment · BLS OEWS
481,300
AI exposure (percentile) · task overlap, not automation
75th pct
36th pct

At a glance

Dimension Substitute Teachers, Short-Term Teaching Assistants, Special Education
Median pay $38,470
Employment 481,300
Employment outlook (2024–34) · BLS projection About average (+1.6%)
Annual openings · BLS projection 61,100
Typical education · O*NET Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not. Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
AI exposure · published exposure studies High · 75th pct Moderate · 36th pct
Global GenAI gradient · ILO ISCO-08 · via crosswalk
Observed AI use · Anthropic Economic Index
Mostly remote-capable · Dingel–Neiman

Pay and employment are BLS OEWS estimates; outlook and openings are BLS 2024–2034 projections; AI exposure and observed-use figures come from separate research and reflect exposure and usage, not predictions that either job will disappear. Compare like with like.

Skills

Shared: English Language, Oral Comprehension, Oral Expression, Reading Comprehension, Active Listening, Speaking, Near Vision, Speech Clarity, Social Perceptiveness, Written Comprehension, Written Expression, Critical Thinking, Monitoring, Instructing, Deductive Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Speech Recognition, Education and Training, Writing, Learning Strategies, Time Management, Problem Sensitivity, Customer and Personal Service, Active Learning, Service Orientation, Coordination, Persuasion, Complex Problem Solving, Information Ordering, Psychology, Judgment and Decision Making, Fluency of Ideas, Category Flexibility, Far Vision, Negotiation, Originality, Selective Attention.

Specific to Substitute Teachers, Short-Term

  • Public Safety and Security
  • Computers and Electronics
  • Mathematics

Specific to Teaching Assistants, Special Education

  • Auditory Attention
  • Time Sharing
  • Flexibility of Closure

Knowledge, skills & abilities O*NET rates as important for each occupation. “Shared” are common to both; the columns list what is distinctive to each (top by the order O*NET surfaces).

Tools & technology

Shared: Spreadsheet software , Office suite software , Electronic mail software , Computer based training software , Desktop communications software , Video creation and editing software , Project management software , Video conferencing software , Multi-media educational software .

Full profiles

This page is a summary. See the complete source-backed profile for Substitute Teachers, Short-Term or Teaching Assistants, Special Education — tasks, the full skill graph, tools, work context, preparation, wages by percentile, industries, AI exposure and the AI work map.

More comparisons

Related occupations you can place side by side on the same sourced scale.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Substitute Teachers, Short-Term vs Teaching Assistants, Special Education." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/compare/substitute-teachers-short-term-vs-teaching-assistants-special-education

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Substitute Teachers, Short-Term vs Teaching Assistants, Special Education. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/compare/substitute-teachers-short-term-vs-teaching-assistants-special-education

BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-substitute-teachers-short-term-vs-teaching-assistants-special-education,
  title  = {Substitute Teachers, Short-Term vs Teaching Assistants, Special Education},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/compare/substitute-teachers-short-term-vs-teaching-assistants-special-education}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.