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The differences between junior technical specialists 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 junior technical specialist and a technical support technician. Additionally, a junior technical specialist has an average salary of $52,938, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a junior technical specialist include troubleshoot, technical support and PC. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
A junior technical specialist is responsible for providing the highest customer service by assisting the end-users in resolving their computer issues and network failures timely and efficiently. Junior technical specialists handle the installments and upgrades of software applications and programs and run multiple diagnostic tests to ensure that the systems meet the quality standards and requirements. A junior technical specialist must have excellent communication and organizational skills, especially in navigating multiple computer tools to help customers with remote troubleshooting and escalations.
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.
Junior technical specialists and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Junior Technical Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $52,938 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $32,000 And $87,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | Urban Honolulu, HI | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | Hawaii | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | McKinsey & Company Inc | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | - | Finance |
There are a few differences between a junior technical specialist and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Junior Technical Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 62% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Biochemistry, Biophysics, Molecular Biology | Business |
| Most common college | - | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between junior technical specialists' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Junior Technical Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 57.5% Female, 42.5% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 9.6% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 15.2% Asian, 15.2% White, 54.3% 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% |