What is a Technician?

To be a technician, you have to know your stuff. Some may refer to you as an expert in your field or maybe people will know you as skilled in an art or craft. Then again, you may just be needed to look after technical equipment.

Your workload as a technician will vary, depending on what you're trained in. You may be needed to set up a new computer system or maybe you'll need to fix an electricity problem. Either way, you'll probably only need to work 40 hours a week.

The degree of education required for this job depends on what you're specific skillset is. Some technicians only need a high school diploma, others may want to complete an associate's program or earn a certificate to help their employment opportunities. There's definitely something for everyone in the field of technicians.

What Does a Technician Do

There are certain skills that many technicians 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 detail oriented, organizational skills and physical strength.

Learn more about what a Technician does

How To Become a Technician

If you're interested in becoming a technician, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 31.5% of technicians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.0% of technicians have master's degrees. Even though some technicians 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 Technician

Technician Job Description

Technicians are skilled workers who manage the construction, maintenance, and overall technical aspects of equipment or systems. They are in charge of the installation, testing, troubleshooting, maintenance, diagnostics, and repair of the equipment or systems assigned to them.

Learn more about Technician Job Description
Top Technician Jobs Near You

Technician Career Paths

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a technician can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as team leader, progress to a title such as manager and then eventually end up with the title plant manager.

Technician

Average Salary for a Technician

Technicians in America make an average salary of $38,045 per year or $18 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $58,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $24,000 per year.
Average Technician Salary
$38,045 Yearly
$18.29 hourly
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What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Technician

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

  • Safety aecom enforces a safety culture whereby all employees have the responsibility for continuously developing
  • Performing maintenance, repair, troubleshoot, and test of the automation type equipment
  • We are looking for an experienced individual who is able to work closely with customers

There are several types of technician, including:

Service Technician

Role:

As a service technician, you'll be coming home with a lot of grease on your hands. Unless, of course, you wash your hands before leaving work. Guess where all that grease comes from. Vehicles! That's right, you'll be inspecting and repairing cars, left and right.

Generally, you'll be working in a well-ventilated, well-lit garage of some sort. You'll need to be familiar with automotive issues in a car's computer system, such as figuring out why the check engine light is on. And you'll probably need to know how to change a tire or change the oil. But we're not telling you how to do your job.

Instead of getting your training from us, you should complete a program from a postsecondary institution. Again, not telling you what to do but rather what employers like to see. Once you have the job, you may need to go a step further by becoming certified.

  • Average Salary: $40,379
  • Degree: Associate Degree

Electronics Technician

Role:

Wherever there is electricity, you will find an electronic technician. In places where there is lighting, heating, computers, machinery, or public transport, sooner or later they show up.

Electronic technicians know everything about circuits, amplifiers, resistors, switches, and regulators. They design electronic devices and components, maintain electronic systems, and install electrical equipment.

Choosing to be an electronic technician might be the best decision of your life. Electricity is magic, there is never enough of it. The amount of electricity used in the U.S. alone today is 13 times the quantity needed in 1950, and this tendency is not about to reverse anytime soon.

The average hourly pay of an electric technician is $21.31. You can do the math. If not, you might want to look for another profession, keep browsing those job posts.

  • Average Salary: $46,660
  • Degree: Associate Degree

Field Technician

Role:

If you are not the kind of person who enjoys sitting around all day in an office, you might want to consider being a field technician.

Field technicians respond to customer requests and travel to the location of the client to install equipment, repair or install machinery, or do maintenance work. They advise customers on how to correctly handle and look after the machines, and in the meantime, effortlessly create great relationships with the clients.

Thumbing their nose at regular working hours, field technicians do not make a fuss about unpredictable schedules. They are available around the clock, often even on weekends, and do not shy away from physically demanding work, either.

  • Average Salary: $37,520
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree
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States With The Most Technician Jobs

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

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Technician Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California23,331$52,037
2Texas18,847$38,291
3Florida16,328$34,972
4New York10,317$42,045
5Pennsylvania9,899$37,447
6Illinois9,548$40,623
7Georgia9,197$34,243
8Ohio9,032$36,409
9North Carolina8,953$35,239
10Virginia7,533$40,598
11Massachusetts7,518$40,629
12Michigan7,157$38,956
13Indiana6,752$35,347
14New Jersey6,691$48,555
15Washington6,166$39,468
16Arizona6,037$38,046
17Tennessee5,958$33,585
18Colorado5,647$38,960
19Minnesota5,643$37,913
20Wisconsin5,169$36,411
21Maryland5,082$43,326
22Missouri4,997$34,250
23South Carolina4,481$34,879
24Iowa3,884$32,781
25Oregon3,813$36,714
26Alabama3,379$31,635
27Kentucky3,173$31,268
28Louisiana3,004$35,865
29Utah2,879$32,455
30Connecticut2,686$46,743
31Oklahoma2,490$35,234
32Kansas2,459$33,460
33Arkansas2,152$30,305
34Mississippi1,953$30,328
35Nevada1,891$39,265
36Nebraska1,859$35,302
37New Mexico1,781$32,883
38New Hampshire1,699$38,349
39Idaho1,625$31,567
40Maine1,391$33,507
41Montana1,248$33,170
42West Virginia1,160$29,564
43Rhode Island903$41,329
44Delaware875$39,025
45North Dakota869$36,171
46South Dakota824$32,464
47Alaska774$39,772
48Hawaii773$56,045
49Vermont634$35,557
50Wyoming563$38,122

Technician Education

Technician Majors

Business
15.4 %
Automotive Technology
10.8 %
Electrical Engineering
9.8 %

Technician Degrees

Bachelors

31.5 %

Associate

26.1 %

High School Diploma

24.8 %

Top Skills For a Technician

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, 16.2% of technicians listed patients on their resume, but soft skills such as detail oriented and organizational skills are important as well.

  • Patients, 16.2%
  • Customer Service, 14.1%
  • Patient Care, 7.8%
  • Hand Tools, 5.8%
  • Diagnosis, 5.4%
  • Other Skills, 50.7%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Technician Resume templates

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

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Technician diversity

Technician Gender Distribution

Male
Male
75%
Female
Female
25%

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

  • Among technicians, 24.8% of them are women, while 75.2% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among technicians is White, which makes up 61.2% of all technicians.

  • The most common foreign language among technicians is Spanish at 63.4%.

Online Courses For Technician That You May Like

Advertising Disclosure  

1. Patient Safety

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Preventable patient harms, including medical errors and healthcare-associated complications, are a global public health threat. Moreover, patients frequently do not receive treatments and interventions known to improve their outcomes. These shortcomings typically result not from individual clinicians’ mistakes, but from systemic problems -- communication breakdowns, poor teamwork, and poorly designed care processes, to name a few.\n\nThe Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Specialization covers...

2. Technical Support Fundamentals

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This course is the first of a series that aims to prepare you for a role as an entry-level IT Support Specialist. In this course, you’ll be introduced to the world of Information Technology, or IT. You’ll learn about the different facets of Information Technology, like computer hardware, the Internet, computer software, troubleshooting, and customer service. This course covers a wide variety of topics in IT that are designed to give you an overview of what’s to come in this certificate program...

3. Introduction To Fiber Optic Cabling

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4.4
(1,243)

Welcome! This course is designed to give you a good understand of fiber optics and fiber data transmission...

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Best States For a Technician

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a technician. The best states for people in this position are Hawaii, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Technicians make the most in Hawaii with an average salary of $56,045. Whereas in California and New Jersey, they would average $52,037 and $48,555, respectively. While technicians would only make an average of $46,743 in Connecticut, 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. Hawaii

Total Technician Jobs: 773
Highest 10% Earn:
$76,000
Location Quotient:
1.05

$56,045

Avg. Salary

View 773 Technician Jobs In HI

2. New Jersey

Total Technician Jobs: 6,691
Highest 10% Earn:
$77,000
Location Quotient:
0.96

$48,555

Avg. Salary

View 6,691 Technician Jobs In NJ

3. California

Total Technician Jobs: 23,331
Highest 10% Earn:
$86,000
Location Quotient:
0.9

$52,037

Avg. Salary

View 23,331 Technician Jobs In CA
Full List Of Best States For Technicians

How Do Technicians Rate Their Jobs?

2/5

5 Stars

4 Stars

3 Stars

2 Stars

1 Star

Technician Reviews

2.0
Nov 2019
Pros

Love taking something that can't be used and giving it life again...

Cons

The pay is too low for the experience one must have...

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Top Technician Employers

Most Common Employers For Technician

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Solectron Corp$91,356$43.92251
2Apple$68,536$32.95202
3Comcast$61,032$29.34566
4AT&T$49,317$23.71430
5T-Mobile$47,858$23.01182
6XPO Logistics$43,285$20.81198
7DISH Network$40,562$19.50530
8MasTec$39,209$18.85335
9MPW$38,343$18.43255
10Nissan$37,380$17.97379
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Technician Videos

Job Shadowing: HVAC Technician-Intern Partnership, A Day in the Life of a HVAC Technician
How to Become a Professional Automotive Technician

Becoming a Technician FAQs

Technician Vs. Engineer

A technician works with complex systems and is responsible for performing technical diagnostic or mechanical testing, while an engineer is responsible for analyzing, developing, and implementing complex systems.

How Long Does It Take To Become An It Technician?

It takes as little as 6 months to become an IT technician. While many IT technicians have 4-year degrees and some have associate degrees in computer science or networking, a large majority report being "self-taught." Almost half of IT technicians have gotten to be where they are through certifications and online courses.

How Much Do Techs Make A Year?

Techs make $44,588 a year, on average. However, there is a lot of variability in how much tech makes depending on the industry or type of tech (e.g., maintenance, IT) and location.

The range in a tech's yearly salary, for instance, can range from $28,000 to $70,000 a year. A more senior-level position as a technician can earn you upwards of $60,000 a year.

Is A Technician An Engineer?

No, a technician is not an engineer. An engineer relies more on theories and science, while a technician has a more practical understanding. Engineers are the problem-solvers, while technicians are doers who resolve problems and keep things working.

What Are The Duties Of A Technician?

The main duties of a technician are to provide skilled labor on complex systems or highly technical mechanical or diagnostic testing. That is the basic description of the duties of a technician. However, there are so many different types of technicians that each has their own specialties that they must learn.

What Is A Technologist Vs Technician?

A technologist vs. technician has several differences, but the main one is that a technologist has a greater role than a technician.

A technician usually suggests that a person has a practical understanding of technology and a good knowledge of the general principles of the field they are in, whereas a technologist is a person who is completely aware of various technologies.

What Qualifications Do I Need To Become A Technician?

The qualifications needed to become a technician are a high school diploma or GED and a willingness to learn.

A technician specializes in or works in a given field. This specialty is commonly related to a profession, and most automotive companies have a standard list of jobs for technicians, such as calibrations, diagnostics, and repairs.

Radiology Technician Vs. Technologist

A radiology technician operates and works on radiology equipment, while a technologist uses radiology equipment to perform diagnostic tests.

A radiology technician uses radiology equipment to take scans but they have no involvement in analyzing or interpreting the scans. They are responsible for shielding patients from unnecessary exposure during a procedure, explaining the process to patients, and moving the equipment for best exposure.

Technician Vs. Mechanic

A technician uses computers and technology to perform a diagnosis on a vehicle and extract data to identify issues, while a mechanic takes a more hands-on approach and usually takes things apart and looks for signs of a problem.

Technologist Vs. Technician

A technologist is an engineering professional who uses technology to determine what can be improved in their industry and how to incorporate new technology, while a technician applies those ideas and completes the actual tasks.

Have more questions? See all answers to common installation, maintenance and repair questions.

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Updated April 6, 2023