Lan/wan engineer vs network technician

The differences between lan/wan engineers and network 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 lan/wan engineer and a network technician. Additionally, a lan/wan engineer has an average salary of $79,887, which is higher than the $68,938 average annual salary of a network technician.

The top three skills for a lan/wan engineer include lan wan, switches and windows server. The most important skills for a network technician are customer service, switches, and troubleshoot.

Lan/wan engineer vs network technician overview

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Technician
Yearly salary	$79,887	$68,938
Hourly rate	$38.41	$33.14
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	53,143	79,712
Job satisfaction	-	5
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 50%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

Lan/wan engineer vs network technician salary

Lan/wan engineers and network technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Technician
Average salary	$79,887	$68,938
Salary range	Between $62,000 And $102,000	Between $51,000 And $92,000
Highest paying City	-	Urban Honolulu, HI
Highest paying state	-	Hawaii
Best paying company	-	Apple
Best paying industry	-	Finance

Differences between lan/wan engineer and network technician education

There are a few differences between a lan/wan engineer and a network technician in terms of educational background:

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Technician
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 50%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	-	University of Pennsylvania

Lan/wan engineer vs network technician demographics

Here are the differences between lan/wan engineers' and network technicians' demographics:

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Technician
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 90.6% Female, 9.4%	Male, 87.3% Female, 12.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 9.0% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.7% Asian, 9.1% White, 63.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 8.9% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.6% Asian, 9.4% White, 63.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between lan/wan engineer and network technician duties and responsibilities

Lan/wan engineer example responsibilities.

Manage the VOIP issues with the users.
Write program codes in Unix and scripts in others to automate systems backup.
Manage blade server farm network, network monitoring servers, and wireless LAN network.
Monitor, manage and resolve all data network circuit outages while working independently using VMware.
Assign IP addresses, routers configuration, IOS upgrades, and manage circuit turn-up at the pops.
Manage user accounts on AIX 3.2/HPUX 10.20/Winows NT 4.0/2000 and Novell Netware 5 in a production environment.

Network technician example responsibilities.

Install and manage DHCP servers including setting up DHCP scopes, enabling DHCP clients, viewing and managing active leases.
Manage city wide IIS deployment.
Manage Virtualization system, using ESX server/client.
Install, configure and manage Symantec Antivirus on all network computers
Use Symantec BackupExec to manage and maintain all server backups and file restorations.
Manage company Cisco series routers, switches, and ASA firewall integrate into MPLS network.

Lan/wan engineer vs network technician skills

Common lan/wan engineer skills

Lan Wan, 13%
Switches, 9%
Windows Server, 5%
VoIP, 4%
Firewall, 4%
Lan, 3%

Common network technician skills

Customer Service, 9%
Switches, 6%
Troubleshoot, 6%
Routers, 4%
Lan Wan, 3%
Lan, 3%