How to become a funeral director
Official title: Funeral director
Also called: Columbaria operation staff, Funeral attendant, Hearse driver, Undertaker, Undertaker assistant, Undertaker's attendant, Columbaria operation staff, Funeral attendant, Hearse driver, Undertaker
Funeral director performs various tasks to arrange and direct an individual funeral services, such as coordinating transportation of the body to the mortuary, interviewing family or other authorised persons to arrange details, selecting pallbearers, aiding with the selection of officials for religious rites, and providing transportation for mourners.
Main tasks
- Making arrangements for, and conducting, funerals, cremations and burials
- Conforming to health and sanitation and ensuring that legal requirements concerning embalming are met
- Conducting interviews to arrange for preparation of obituary notices, to assist with the selection of caskets or urns, and to determine the location and time of burials or cremations
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
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Questions people ask
Will AI change the work of a funeral director?
Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026