Occupation / job
Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
A midpoint of $79,870 against $50,020 means Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians pays $2,487 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.
138,090 people are employed as Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians. At that size there is a real ladder and enough churn that experience can be sold to a competitor rather than only accumulated where you are.
This work suits people who want a trade with immediate feedback and a customer who can see the result, and who do not mind being dirty at the end of the day.
We carry no verified training length for Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $62,630 and a quarter above $99,130: a 1.6x ratio, $36,500 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
The bottom quarter of Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians earns $62,630 or more — $12,610 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Three quarters of the field is well paid and the last quarter is still paid better than most of the country.
Avoid it if you would resent buying your own tools, which in this trade is a real and recurring cost.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 138,090 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $79,870 as where you might be after years in Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians, and $62,630 as where you would start.
In cash terms the middle half of Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians runs $62,630 to $99,130 — $36,500 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $79,870.
Between $62,630 and $99,130 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $79,870. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $19,260; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $36,500.
$79,870 sits almost exactly in the middle of its own range — $17,240 above the bottom quarter, $19,260 below the top one. A symmetric distribution like this is the case where the median genuinely does describe the typical person.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians is $38.39 an hour. The quarters sit at $30.11 and $47.65, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians. The self-employed are excluded, so $79,870 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $79,870 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else