How To Become A Machine Maintenance: What It Is and Career Path

What is a machine maintenance and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a machine maintenance. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.64 an hour? That's $38,764 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 76,300 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreMachine MaintenanceUS Average

Salary

3.0

Avg. Salary $38,764

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.6

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.19%

Asian 4.69%

Black or African American 11.04%

Hispanic or Latino 15.41%

Unknown 4.28%

White 63.39%

Gender

female 3.80%

male 96.20%

Age - 49

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 49

Stress level

7.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.1

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a machine maintenance

Explore machine maintenance education requirements

Most common machine maintenance degrees

High School Diploma

42.4 %

Associate

26.3 %

Diploma

12.7 %

Start to develop specific machine maintenance skills

Skills	Percentages
Troubleshoot	12.46%
Hand Tools	10.82%
CNC	9.72%
Grinders	6.01%
PLC	5.47%

Complete relevant machine maintenance training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New machine maintenances learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a machine maintenance based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real machine maintenance resumes.

Research machine maintenance duties and responsibilities

Bench work including assembly of gearboxes, spindles, drills etc.
Weld metals with arc, mig, and gas.
Weld various metals and objects by the use of gas, arc, MIG, and TIG welding.
Require to troubleshoot when problem arise.

Prepare your machine maintenance resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your machine maintenance resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a machine maintenance resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable machine maintenance resume templates

Build a professional machine maintenance resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your machine maintenance resume.