Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between technical solutions 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 technical solutions specialist and a technical support technician. Additionally, a technical solutions specialist has an average salary of $111,470, which is higher than the $40,210 average annual salary of a technical support technician.
The top three skills for a technical solutions specialist include cloud, technical solutions and technical support. The most important skills for a technical support technician are customer service, technical support, and patients.
| Technical Solutions Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Yearly salary | $111,470 | $40,210 |
| Hourly rate | $53.59 | $19.33 |
| Growth rate | 10% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 161,014 | 165,677 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 64% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Years of experience | 2 | 2 |
Technical Solutions Specialists are responsible for providing technical support and advice to customers and internal teams of an organization. Their duties include assessing business objectives through stakeholders' interaction, conducting product demonstrations, providing technical advice, and suggesting improvements for product teams. They are responsib designing solutions to fit customers' needs, assist in internal team training, and facilitate new website launches. Technical Solutions Specialists also gather market intelligence, conduct technical compliance, and assist in the request for proposals (RFP).
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.
Technical solutions specialists and technical support technicians have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Technical Solutions Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average salary | $111,470 | $40,210 |
| Salary range | Between $78,000 And $157,000 | Between $24,000 And $64,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Francisco, CA | Philadelphia, PA |
| Highest paying state | California | Pennsylvania |
| Best paying company | PVH | Ropes & Gray |
| Best paying industry | Telecommunication | Finance |
There are a few differences between a technical solutions specialist and a technical support technician in terms of educational background:
| Technical Solutions Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 64% | Bachelor's Degree, 40% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between technical solutions specialists' and technical support technicians' demographics:
| Technical Solutions Specialist | Technical Support Technician | |
| Average age | 42 | 42 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 80.5% Female, 19.5% | Male, 66.7% Female, 33.3% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 11.3% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 16.2% Asian, 11.8% White, 55.1% 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% |