Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between field support technicians and technical support technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a field support technician and a technical support technician. Additionally, a field support technician has an average salary of $42,440, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a field support technician include customer service, user support and troubleshoot. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
| Field Support Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $42,440 | $40,210 |
| Hourly rate | $20.40 | $19.33 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 161,037 | 165,677 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 41% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
A field service technician is working on-call to provide emergency services and test equipment devices for safety purposes and quality control. They are responsible for working with clients to prevent, troubleshoot, and repair issues. They help clients on how to install, maintain, and diagnose equipment for repair. They also present to clients how to properly use their equipment. It is also part of their job to provide training to clients in line with safety standards and regulations.
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.
Field support technicians and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Field Support Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $42,440 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $28,000 And $62,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | Bridgewater, NJ | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | Delaware | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | HP | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | Pharmaceutical | Finance |
There are a few differences between a field support technician and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Field Support Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 41% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Computer Information Systems | Business |
| Most common college | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between field support technicians' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Field Support Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 89.5% Female, 10.5% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.3% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.4% Asian, 10.5% White, 55.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4% | 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 | 11% | 11% |