Occupation / job
Avionics 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
$82,280 is $2,688 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Avionics Technicians are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
18,830 people work as Avionics Technicians. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
Electrical and electronic repair suits people who enjoy fault-finding on a system they did not build, using a diagram that is usually out of date.
No verified preparation time is on file for Avionics Technicians. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$63,900 to $99,110 — 1.6x, or $2,934 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for Avionics Technicians is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
The bottom quarter of Avionics Technicians earns $63,900 or more — $13,880 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 need documentation to be accurate — much of this work is on equipment nobody kept records for.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 18,830 people employed as Avionics Technicians; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
1.6x between $63,900 and $99,110 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $82,280 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
Put in money rather than ratios: $63,900 at the 25th percentile, $82,280 at the midpoint, $99,110 at the 75th. $35,210 separates the quarter of Avionics Technicians at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $63,900 and $99,110 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $82,280. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $16,830; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $35,210.
There is $18,380 between $63,900 and $82,280, and $16,830 between $82,280 and $99,110. The lower half of the range is marginally the longer one — worth knowing if you would be entering Avionics Technicians at the bottom of it.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Avionics Technicians is $39.55 an hour. The quarters sit at $30.72 and $47.64, 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 Avionics Technicians. The self-employed are excluded, so $82,280 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Avionics Technicians, the hourly figure is $82,280 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else