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The differences between professional technicians 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 professional technician and a technical support technician. Additionally, a professional technician has an average salary of $81,726, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a professional technician include customer service, cloud and project management. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
| Professional Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $81,726 | $40,210 |
| Hourly rate | $39.29 | $19.33 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 123,659 | 165,677 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
A professional technician is responsible for handling the complexities of technical and mechanical systems, repair defective components, and recommend technical solutions to enhance the company's productivity and efficiency in delivering high-quality deliverables. Professional technicians must be highly skilled in analyzing schematics and blueprints to assemble components and perform troubleshooting. They also manage the adequacy of inventories, create purchase requests, and identify costs and expenses for repairs and installations. A professional technician must be highly communicative and organization, especially in handling tasks with utmost adherence to safety protocols and regulations.
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.
Professional technicians and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Professional Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $81,726 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $64,000 And $104,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | California | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | Microsoft | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | Energy | Finance |
There are a few differences between a professional technician and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Professional Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 68% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Mechanical Engineering | Business |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between professional technicians' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Professional Technician | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 72.1% Female, 27.9% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.3% Unknown, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.0% Asian, 12.8% White, 54.2% 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% |