There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a highway technician. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.07 an hour? That's $37,581 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 3,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many highway technicians have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed math skills, writing skills and critical-thinking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a highway technician, we found that a lot of resumes listed 28.4% of highway technicians included highway maintenance, while 16.3% of resumes included traffic control, and 11.9% of resumes included snow removal. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the highway technician job title. But what industry to start with? Most highway technicians actually find jobs in the construction and professional industries.
If you're interested in becoming a highway technician, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 17.4% of highway technicians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.4% of highway technicians have master's degrees. Even though some highway technicians have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a highway technician. When we researched the most common majors for a highway technician, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on highway technician resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a highway technician. In fact, many highway technician jobs require experience in a role such as driver. Meanwhile, many highway technicians also have previous career experience in roles such as truck driver or sales associate.
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As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a highway technician can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as delivery driver, progress to a title such as technician and then eventually end up with the title maintenance director.
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Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 28.4% of highway technicians listed highway maintenance on their resume, but soft skills such as math skills and writing skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a highway technician. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, and West Virginia. Highway technicians make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $59,225. Whereas in Vermont and Colorado, they would average $55,779 and $53,260, respectively. While highway technicians would only make an average of $53,139 in West Virginia, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Kentucky
$52,092
Avg. Salary
2. Colorado
$53,261
Avg. Salary
3. North Dakota
$48,267
Avg. Salary