Highway technician vs civil technician

The differences between highway technicians and civil technicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 8-10 years to become both a highway technician and a civil technician. Additionally, a civil technician has an average salary of $55,480, which is higher than the $35,400 average annual salary of a highway technician.

The top three skills for a highway technician include GRASS, traffic control and CDL. The most important skills for a civil technician are hand tools, RF, and GPS.

Highway technician vs civil technician overview

	Highway Technician	Civil Technician
Yearly salary	$35,400	$55,480
Hourly rate	$17.02	$26.67
Growth rate	-	-
Number of jobs	8,849	14,681
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	High School Diploma, 44%	Associate Degree, 35%
Average age	45	45
Years of experience	10	10

Highway technician vs civil technician salary

Highway technicians and civil technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Highway Technician	Civil Technician
Average salary	$35,400	$55,480
Salary range	Between $27,000 And $46,000	Between $40,000 And $75,000
Highest paying City	Cleveland, OH	-
Highest paying state	Massachusetts	-
Best paying company	Iowa Department of Transportation	-
Best paying industry	Insurance	-

Differences between highway technician and civil technician education

There are a few differences between a highway technician and a civil technician in terms of educational background:

	Highway Technician	Civil Technician
Most common degree	High School Diploma, 44%	Associate Degree, 35%
Most common major	Business	Drafting And Design
Most common college	Wentworth Institute of Technology	San Diego State University

Highway technician vs civil technician demographics

Here are the differences between highway technicians' and civil technicians' demographics:

	Highway Technician	Civil Technician
Average age	45	45
Gender ratio	Male, 85.8% Female, 14.2%	Male, 85.5% Female, 14.5%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 9.4% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 10.3% Asian, 6.0% White, 68.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%	Black or African American, 9.5% Unknown, 4.9% Hispanic or Latino, 16.8% Asian, 7.5% White, 60.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between highway technician and civil technician duties and responsibilities

Highway technician example responsibilities.

Help manage the housing development; keeping it clean, in compliance with OSHA laws, and state safety laws.
Operate skagg and batwing mowers.
Lead worker on the mowing crew.
Have worked with concrete and asphalt, both removal and placement.
Overlie projects dealing with asphalt, do ditch work with all kinds of equipment.
Operate front-end loaders, mowers, chainsaws, weed trimmers, and pole saws as trained.

Civil technician example responsibilities.

Operate MDTs and GPS units.
Test asphalt for nuclear density.
Install all RF equipment as needed on site.
Review RFDS and other RF engineering documents to determine construct-ability and develop SOW/OOM/BOM.
Survey by using GPS and total station systems to get elevations and layouts for projects.
Convert old rasterize substation drawings back into scalable vector format with various AutoDesk programs.

Highway technician vs civil technician skills

Common highway technician skills

GRASS, 16%
Traffic Control, 14%
CDL, 11%
Highway Maintenance, 11%
Dump Truck, 7%
Pavement Markings, 5%

Common civil technician skills

Hand Tools, 38%
RF, 20%
GPS, 10%
Data Collection, 10%
Civil Engineering, 6%
DOT, 4%