How To Become A Video Technician: What It Is and Career Path

What is a video technician and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Michael Neal Ph.D.

Video Technicians set up and operate the video, audio, and lighting equipment used to enhance live events. They assemble microphones, mix soundboards, coordinate graphics, operate spotlights, manage video recordings, and provide technical support for corporate events.

As a Video Technician, you will be responsible for organizing and installing media equipment such as projectors, microphones, video monitors, and soundboards. You may also be required to alter the venue layout to enhance acoustics.

To ensure success in this role, you should have advanced knowledge of audio and video equipment, experience with lighting and filming techniques, and excellent troubleshooting skills. Ultimately, a top-notch Video Technician should create great audio and visual effects to enhance any live experience.

The individuals who gravitate towards this field end up laying claim to annual earnings at $35,000. However, this figure can vary significantly depending upon your experience, skills, and academic qualification.

What general advice would you give to a video technician?

Michael Neal Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Director, Rhetoric & Composition, Florida State University

The advice can be tricky, especially since our graduates go into a number of fields. My hope for them is that they continue to build upon what they learned in our program and apply it to new situations and contexts outside of school. I often tell students that editing, writing, and media aren't skills you master and then apply universally across contexts. Instead, we encourage students to keep growing and stretching themselves, since they will most likely face new genres, audiences, and contexts that they didn't see in college. Therefore, we teach them to be flexible, to be close readers, and analyze each rhetorical situation to determine how to best communicate within that context. Good writing isn't one-size-fits-all. Instead, it's a complex, negotiated relationship between writers, texts, contexts, audiences, media, modalities, etc.

ScoreVideo TechnicianUS Average

Salary

3.6

Avg. Salary $45,504

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.37%

Asian 5.07%

Black or African American 9.70%

Hispanic or Latino 16.26%

Unknown 6.25%

White 62.35%

Gender

female 18.47%

male 81.53%

Age - 41

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 - 41

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.3

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a video technician

Explore video technician education requirements

Most common video technician degrees

Bachelor's

55.6 %

Associate

24.5 %

High School Diploma

9.3 %

Start to develop specific video technician skills

Skills	Percentages
VTC	8.29%
Video Equipment	7.37%
Video Production	5.98%
Video	5.53%
Technical Support	5.53%

Complete relevant video technician training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New video technicians 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 video technician based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real video technician resumes.

Research video technician duties and responsibilities

Manage and clean sculpture studio after hours and assist students.
Manage HD camerawork and calculating wireless mic levels.
Capture b-roll video footage of events and photos of event.
Design network architecture; develop plans and specifications for video delivery over cable and IP systems.

Prepare your video technician resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your video technician 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 video technician resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable video technician resume templates

Build a professional video technician 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 video technician resume.