AI is coming for the boring parts of white-collar work, and a new report from Redeployable, developed in partnership with Hire Heroes USA, basically says that’s a good thing. Routine jobs were never the end game for vets anyway.
The report says the winners in 2026 are roles that still require judgment, leadership, technical problem-solving, and real-world presence when things break.
Veterans are Built for the Jobs AI Can’t Kill
The report, called The AI Career Shift: Where Veterans Should Focus in 2026,” frames AI as a sorting machine. It’s automating task-based work fastest, especially the kind of entry-level jobs that used to serve as “apprenticeships” for civilian careers.
Meanwhile, the jobs holding up best are the ones that demand human judgment, autonomy, and complex coordination. That’s a pretty clean match for military experience.
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Redeployable and Hire Heroes USA argue that veterans do best in the long-term when three things line up: the work fits military skills, the field is growing, and it has low exposure to automation. They call these the “three pillars” of veteran career success, and they back it with retention data that tracks whether veterans stay with the same employer for at least two years.
Retention Shows Where Veterans Thrive
Veterans vote with their feet, and two-year retention is the signal for real fit, real satisfaction, and real upward mobility.
The highest veteran two-year retention shows up in these career groups:
- Information security and cybersecurity
- Healthcare
- Skilled Trades
- Strategic Management
On the flip side, veterans tend to move quickly on to administrative or clerical work, customer service, IT help desk or support, and entry-level analyst roles. The report doesn’t call these bad jobs. It calls them stepping stones that are being squeezed by automation and that often don’t align with what veterans want long-term: autonomy, responsibility, mission, and complexity.
The Sweet Spot for Jobs in 2026
The report’s “sweet spot” is where all three pillars converge: strong veteran retention, strong growth projections, and high automation resistance. It highlights six main lanes.
Cybersecurity sits at the top for a reason. Veterans often have built-in advantages here, including security clearances, threat awareness, and an adversarial mindset that maps to defensive security work. The growth projection for information security is 33% from 2023 to 2033.
Healthcare is the purpose play. It offers mission-driven work, high stability, and huge demand, with about 1.9 million openings annually. It’s also highly resistant to automation because it requires physical presence, empathy, and emergency judgment.
Skilled trades and technical maintenance are treated like an underrated cheat code. The report highlights electricians, HVAC techs, wind turbine techs, and industrial maintenance as high-retention, high-demand, and close to impossible to automate because the work is physical, diagnostic, and unpredictable. These jobs can expect growth of 11% for electricians, 9% for HVAC, and roughly 50% or more for wind turbine technicians, depending on the occupation.
Engineering is a natural extension of military systems thinking. Veterans often enter through technician, drafting, technical support, or coordination roles while completing degree or credential requirements, then move into engineering specialties with strong long-term stability.
Project, program, and operations management are presented as the fast-track option. Veterans already have leadership and planning experience under pressure, so with the right translation, many can compete for mid-level responsibility faster than typical civilian candidates.
Supply chain and logistics is the mission-essential lane civilians only notice when it breaks. Veterans have lived the reality of moving people and equipment under constraints, which is why the field is a strong fit, especially in disruption-heavy environments.
Avoid the AI Trap: Entry-Level Roles
The report’s blunt warning is that many entry-level white-collar roles are being reshaped fast, and not in a way that helps someone build a long runway.
Routine-heavy roles such as clerical processing, customer support, basic IT troubleshooting, and junior analyst work are areas where AI is increasingly absorbing repetitive core tasks. The report also cites 696,309 job cuts in the first five months of 2025, with entry-level office roles especially affected.
The point is not to never take these jobs. It’s more like a warning not to get comfortable. Use them as on-ramps, then move toward higher judgment, higher complexity, and clearer advancement.
What Veterans Should Do Next
The report comes with a set of data-driven recommendations that boil down to a simple playbook.
Pick careers that score well on retention, growth, and automation resistance. Trust where veterans stay longer. Aim for roles that leverage military leadership and decision-making, even if that means targeting mid-level positions and then bridging the gap with certs, apprenticeships, licensing, or accelerated programs.
And if you have a clearance, the report basically screams at you to use it. In a cybersecurity market with strong growth and high veteran retention, a clearance is not just a line on a resume. It’s a fast pass.
This report’s key takeaway is refreshingly unsentimental: AI is erasing the easy ladders, but veterans were never built for the easy road anyway. The safest bets in 2026 are careers that need human judgment, leadership, technical competence, and real-world execution, and the retention data says veterans are already thriving in exactly those lanes.For more information, read the full report, “The AI Career Shift: Where Veterans Should Focus in 2026.” Or catch the summary on Redeployable.
