Maintenance and Repair Workers, General
Perform work involving the skills of two or more maintenance or craft occupations to keep machines, mechanical equipment, or the structure of a building in repair. Duties may involve pipe fitting; HVAC maintenance; insulating; welding; machining; carpentry; repairing electrical or mechanical equipment; installing, aligning, and balancing new equipment; and repairing buildings, floors, or stairs.
- Median pay
- $49,590
- Doing it now
- 1,621,800
- By 2035
- Up 4.2%
- Usually needs
- High school diploma or equivalent
a year
across the country
148,700 openings a year
to get in
What the work involves
- Assemble, install, or repair wiring, electrical or electronic components, pipe systems, plumbing, machinery, or equipment.
- Diagnose mechanical problems and determine how to correct them, checking blueprints, repair manuals, or parts catalogs, as necessary.
- Inspect, operate, or test machinery or equipment to diagnose machine malfunctions.
- Record type and cost of maintenance or repair work.
- Clean or lubricate shafts, bearings, gears, or other parts of machinery.
- Plan and lay out repair work, using diagrams, drawings, blueprints, maintenance manuals, or schematic diagrams.
- Adjust functional parts of devices or control instruments, using hand tools, levels, plumb bobs, or straightedges.
What to study
The fields of study the Department of Education links to this occupation, most widely taught first.
- Building/Construction Finishing, Management, and InspectionSee 14 colleges that teach it
Who it suits
O*NET scores every occupation on six interest dimensions. This one leans hardest on these three.
Hands-on and practical
Organised and precise
Analytical and curious
Careers like this one
Where this comes from: the description and the task list are O*NET, which the Department of Labor maintains. Pay, workforce size, outlook and the education normally needed are the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections programme, 2025 wages and 2025 to 2035 projections. Half of them earn more than $49,590 a year, which means half earn less, and what you would earn depends on where you work and how long you have been doing it. The fields of study come from the National Center for Education Statistics crosswalk.