A maintenance helper is an individual who assists an experienced maintenance and repair technician. This position is an entry-level position and involves making sure that the maintenance technician has all the tools and equipment needed to conduct a job. A maintenance helper performs various support tasks, and assists the maintenance technician in installing and repairing machines and equipment, cleans workspaces, as well as ensures that all equipment and tools are in working order.

An advanced degree is not necessary to land a job as a maintenance helper, but most employers do require a High School diploma or a GED, and some experience in maintenance work. A maintenance helper should possess strong communication, mechanical, and troubleshooting skills, and should be comfortable working with customers and various tools and machinery.

A maintenance helper can make up to $30,000 annually, and the career field is expected to grow 6% by 2028.

What Does a Maintenance Helper Do

There are certain skills that many maintenance helpers 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 customer-service skills, dexterity and troubleshooting skills.

Learn more about what a Maintenance Helper does

How To Become a Maintenance Helper

If you're interested in becoming a maintenance helper, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 13.5% of maintenance helpers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 0.8% of maintenance helpers have master's degrees. Even though some maintenance helpers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Maintenance Helper

Maintenance Helper Career Paths

Average Salary for a Maintenance Helper

Maintenance Helpers in America make an average salary of $30,824 per year or $15 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $40,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $23,000 per year.
Average Maintenance Helper Salary
$30,824 Yearly
$14.82 hourly

What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Maintenance Helper

The role of a maintenance helper includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general maintenance helper responsibilities:

  • Manage all store room activities. Perform scheduled preventative maintenance assigned from cmms. Transport maintenance materials
  • Maintain overall appearance and cleanliness of all facilities as assist maintenance
  • Moves baggage from default pier and delivers to appropriate airline pier or make-up unit. Completes computer entries

There are several types of maintenance helper, including:

Maintenance Technician

Role:

A maintenance technician mainly focuses their time on making repairs to equipment and property structures. When the HVAC unit stops working on the hottest day of the year, the maintenance technicians are the ones who will be called on to save the day.

Generally, maintenance technicians only need a high school diploma to get by in their career, although higher positions in the maintenance technician field may require a two-year program of some sort.

You know how we said that maintenance technicians may be called upon in emergency situations? Well, that may mean you'll be working outside of your normal hours. For the most part, you'll work a normal, full-time schedule. But emergencies may get you out of bed or interrupt your weekend. Just be prepared for those emergencies.

  • Average Salary: $43,293
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Maintenance Worker

Role:

A maintenance worker, aka the handy-man, takes on the noble and constant struggle against decay. Working indoors or outdoors; on one site, such as a school, hospital, or office building, or at several locations; such as different buildings of a college campus, a maintenance worker's vigilant gaze will notice any sign of impairment and fix what is damaged.

Whether the problem is a broken window, faulty wiring, a burned-out lightbulb, peeling paint, or leaks, maintenance workers will be there to take care of it. They clean windows, mow the lawn, collect trash, and will be expected to perform preventive maintenance as well. They repair machines and mechanical equipment, too, so you might find yourself working at a manufacturing site or factory taking on this position.

According to statistical data, this is a position primarily filled by men, although this is not meant as a discouragement to all the aspiring handy-ladies out there. As housing prices increase and people tend to opt for remodeling rather than buying new, the demand for maintenance workers is growing as well.

  • Average Salary: $36,132
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Helper

Role:

A helper gives a hand with domestic chores. Your employer might have a demanding job or one too many children to take care of, or perhaps they do not have the physical strength to keep an organized home.

You could be asked to work in the garden or maintain the lawn, but most of your tasks will revolve around housekeeping. Cooking, cleaning, and running various errands will be on your to-do list, like grocery shopping, picking up kids from school, cleaning the pool, whatever your employer might think of, really. As long as it is legal, you should be up for it.

You will be coming in and out of other people's homes sharing their personal space, sometimes even in a live-in arrangement, so being friendly, clean, and reliable is a must. You need to build a good relationship with the family you help and, as usual, building trust takes time. Just make sure your working hours are respected, and you get the amount of free time you had agreed upon. Painting an image of what an overworked and cranky helper might do will definitely set the grounds for negotiation.

  • Average Salary: $31,331
  • Degree: High School Diploma

States With The Most Maintenance Helper Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active maintenance helper jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where maintenance helpers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Maintenance Helper Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California3,827$34,104
2Texas2,857$28,302
3Florida2,576$26,037
4North Carolina1,561$28,087
5Ohio1,539$27,549
6Georgia1,478$27,333
7Pennsylvania1,475$30,806
8Illinois1,341$30,196
9New York1,314$33,668
10Virginia1,269$31,869
11Indiana1,086$30,890
12Tennessee958$28,100
13Arizona946$30,751
14Washington937$31,152
15New Jersey893$28,526
16Michigan885$27,150
17Wisconsin883$30,593
18Minnesota839$37,582
19South Carolina836$25,547
20Massachusetts824$32,580
21Colorado812$36,033
22Maryland699$36,058
23Missouri647$28,291
24Kentucky642$28,150
25Alabama482$24,188
26Oregon477$32,564
27Iowa467$36,582
28Utah441$26,996
29Connecticut425$32,576
30Louisiana370$26,698
31Mississippi354$23,020
32Kansas352$24,717
33Nevada325$34,449
34Arkansas314$26,146
35Nebraska306$25,487
36Oklahoma293$26,947
37New Hampshire222$33,065
38New Mexico182$23,492
39Maine180$31,378
40West Virginia163$27,378
41Idaho154$27,559
42Montana144$26,076
43Delaware140$32,683
44Alaska123$39,388
45Rhode Island104$35,202
46Hawaii97$34,775
47North Dakota93$34,269
48South Dakota84$29,613
49Vermont83$34,182
50Wyoming58$28,919

Maintenance Helper Education

Maintenance Helper Majors

14.2 %

Maintenance Helper Degrees

High School Diploma

47.0 %

Associate

17.5 %

Diploma

14.2 %

Top Skills For a Maintenance Helper

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, 21.7% of maintenance helpers listed hand tools on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and dexterity are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Maintenance Helper Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Maintenance Helper templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Maintenance Helper resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Maintenance Helper Demographics

Maintenance Helper Gender Distribution

Male
Male
90%
Female
Female
11%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among maintenance helpers, 10.5% of them are women, while 89.5% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among maintenance helpers is White, which makes up 59.0% of all maintenance helpers.

  • The most common foreign language among maintenance helpers is Spanish at 71.7%.

Online Courses For Maintenance Helper That You May Like

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1. Junos Routing, Operations, and Maintenance

coursera

In this course, we will explain basic routing concepts including routing policy, routing and forwarding tables, routing instances, and Junos OS routing configuration basics. This course will also explain the concepts and configuration basics of user authentication, the various types of interfaces found on network devices, archiving configurations, configuring and analyzing system logging and tracing, and configuring SNMP for collecting and organizing information about managed devices. Other...

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2. SMP/E for z/OS Workshop

coursera

This course is designed to provide the SMP/E skills needed in the installation and maintenance of optional features and maintenance in the z/OS operating environment. Students are taught to define the SMP/E database and invoke SMP/E to add, modify, or replace system elements. The course includes extensive hands-on labs using a current level of SMP/E. Students will get practical experience in the SMP/E tasks involved in installing a z/OS product. Emphasis is on interpreting results of SMP/E...

See More on Coursera

3. Maintenance Planning Basics

udemy
4.3
(679)

Understanding maintenance planning basics of successful maintenance department...

See More on Udemy
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Best States For a Maintenance Helper

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a maintenance helper. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, Minnesota, Iowa, and Maryland. Maintenance helpers make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $39,388. Whereas in Minnesota and Iowa, they would average $37,582 and $36,582, respectively. While maintenance helpers would only make an average of $36,058 in Maryland, 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. Alaska

Total Maintenance Helper Jobs: 123
Highest 10% Earn:
$47,000
Location Quotient:
1.12

2. Iowa

Total Maintenance Helper Jobs: 467
Highest 10% Earn:
$47,000
Location Quotient:
0.98

3. Nevada

Total Maintenance Helper Jobs: 325
Highest 10% Earn:
$45,000
Location Quotient:
1.18
Full List Of Best States For Maintenance Helpers

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Top Maintenance Helper Employers

Most Common Employers For Maintenance Helper

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Freeport-McMoRan$44,724$21.5025
2Novelis$43,946$21.136
3Southern California Edison$40,511$19.4814
4New York State Restaurant Association$38,364$18.449
5EMCOR Group$37,580$18.079
6International Paper$35,700$17.166
7Aerotek$32,296$15.539
8Kelly Services$32,127$15.4513
9Adecco$32,014$15.397
10Town & Country Markets$32,000$15.3814

Maintenance Helper Videos