Occupation / job
Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists
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
Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists pays $61,770 against $50,020 across all occupations — $979 a month more. Every premium is paid for something: find out whether it is the schooling, the licence, the hours or the risk before you decide you want it.
289,960 people do this work. An occupation this large has a published, well-known going rate — which means less scope to be underpaid and less scope to negotiate above it.
Vehicle and equipment mechanics suit people who like diagnosis with an immediate test — the machine either runs afterwards or it does not, and there is no arguing with it.
How long it takes to become one of the 289,960 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
The middle half runs $50,540 to $75,470 — $2,077 a month between the quarters, a 1.5x ratio. Spreads this narrow are usually set by a grade or a scale, so the negotiation you are imagining probably is not available.
The bottom quarter of Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists still clears $50,540 — $520 above the $50,020 typical job. A high floor is the most valuable and least advertised property an occupation can have.
Avoid it if flat-rate pay would frustrate you — being paid the book time rather than the actual time cuts both ways.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 289,960 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
The quarters are $50,540 and $75,470, a ratio of 1.5x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists is the cost of living where you do it.
In cash terms the middle half of Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists runs $50,540 to $75,470 — $24,930 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $61,770.
The 75th percentile is $75,470. Reaching it from the $61,770 midpoint is $13,700 a year; reaching it from the $50,540 that the bottom quarter of Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists earn is $24,930.
From $61,770 it is $11,230 down to the bottom quarter and $13,700 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $29.69 at the midpoint for Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists, $24.29 at the 25th percentile and $36.28 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $61,770 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $61,770 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