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The differences between data technicians and technical support technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-12 months to become a data technician, becoming a technical support technician takes usually requires 1-2 years. Additionally, a data technician has an average salary of $41,834, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a data technician include data entry, java and data management. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
| Data Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $41,834 | $40,210 |
| Hourly rate | $20.11 | $19.33 |
| Growth rate | 7% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 101,074 | 165,677 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 45% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Average age | 38 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 12 | 2 |
A data technician is responsible for handling the company's data management systems and ensuring the safety and security of the stored information. Data technicians write data reports, retrieve necessary information, and dispose of outdated data properly according to the company's guidelines. They also create incident reports and identify data storage solutions to prevent unauthorized access and malicious leak of confidential information. A data technician must have excellent organizational and technical skills, especially in strategizing techniques, to enhance the stability and optimization of data servers.
Technical support technicians are skilled professionals who resolve computer or information technology-related concerns. They may do installations, repairs, or maintenance activities of various applications or computer hardware. They are sometimes assigned specific issues or concerns to resolve so that they will not be bombarded with various issues. This means that they can now specialize in a specific family of concerns. Technical support technicians may provide on-site support, going directly to the person who needs help and doing what needs to be done or troubleshoot the problem in person. They may also be offsite and would usually be manning helpdesk hotlines. Offsite technical support technicians walk the caller through the steps they should do to fix the issues. As such, when a technical support technician is offsite, they are expected to be good communicators and will be able to provide clear instructions.
Data technicians and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Data Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $41,834 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $25,000 And $68,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | Santa Clara, CA | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | California | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | Citi | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | Energy | Finance |
There are a few differences between a data technician and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Data Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 45% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between data technicians' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Data Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 38 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 61.2% Female, 38.8% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 9.6% Unknown, 5.7% Hispanic or Latino, 16.9% Asian, 10.5% White, 56.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.0% | Black or African American, 10.6% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.9% Asian, 10.6% White, 56.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% |
| LGBT Percentage | 8% | 11% |