---
title: "Aerospace Composite Technician"
description: "Builds and repairs aircraft and spacecraft parts made from carbon fiber and other composite materials."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-composite-technician"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Aerospace Composite Technician

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-2051 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-2051.00

Builds and repairs aircraft and spacecraft parts made from carbon fiber and other composite materials.

Also advertised as: Composite Technician; Composites Technician; Composite Fabricator; Composite Repair Technician; Aerospace Composite Fabricator.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $46,880 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $22.54/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $36,910 to $63,760, with the middle half between $39,430 and $54,490
- **Total US employment:** 16,170
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 53/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 16,170 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $36,910 |
| 25th | $39,430 |
| 50th (median) | $46,880 |
| 75th | $54,490 |
| 90th | $63,760 |
| Mean (average) | $49,550 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $58,410 | $54,582 | 1,100 |
| MA | $55,980 | $52,933 | 200 |
| PA | $54,800 | $56,164 | 270 |
| NJ | $54,080 | $49,704 | 680 |
| ID | $53,040 | $55,543 | Not published by BLS |
| TN | $52,120 | $56,732 | 590 |
| ME | $50,710 | $52,251 | 320 |
| IA | $50,450 | $57,485 | 40 |
| OR | $49,850 | $48,229 | 160 |
| RI | $49,260 | $48,162 | 170 |
| OH | $49,130 | $52,957 | 490 |
| SD | $48,410 | $54,647 | 70 |
| CA | $47,750 | $43,127 | 850 |
| NV | $47,700 | $47,710 | 120 |
| NE | $47,420 | $52,629 | 90 |

21 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 36 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-composite-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aerospace-composite-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 16,300 in the 2025–2035 base year to 17,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 800 jobs, or +4.6%. Faster than average: 4.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 45.8% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 42.5% |
| Some College Courses | 11.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 0.6% |

## What the work involves

- Cut and lay up composite plies following ply schedules
- Vacuum bag parts and prepare them for cure
- Operate ovens and autoclaves
- Trim, drill and finish cured parts
- Inspect parts for defects
- Repair damaged composite structures to approved manuals
- Document work for quality traceability

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Administration and Management — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Multilimb Coordination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Trunk Strength — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.74 |
| C — Conventional | 4.29 |
| I — Investigative | 3.08 |
| A — Artistic | 2.22 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.16 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 88.7 |
| ISTP | 81.5 |
| INTJ | 72.7 |
| ISFJ | 70.2 |
| ESTJ | 66.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Fiberglass Laminator and Fabricator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fiberglass-laminator-and-fabricator) — median $46,880
- [Molder, Shaper, and Caster, Except Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molder-shaper-and-caster) — median $46,170
- [Foundry Mold and Coremaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/foundry-mold-and-coremaker) — median $48,110
- [Insulation Worker, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insulation-worker-floor-ceiling-and-wall) — median $49,120
- [Structural Metal Fabricator and Fitter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/structural-metal-fabricator-and-fitter) — median $51,330
- [Tire Builder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tire-builder) — median $57,390
- [Aircraft Structure, Surface, Rigging, and Systems Assembler](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-structure-surface-rigging-and-systems-assembler) — median $65,380
- [Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/coating-painting-and-spraying-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $48,250
- [Furniture Finisher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/furniture-finisher) — median $44,540
- [Extruding and Forming Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Synthetic and Glass Fiber](https://nuecareer.com/careers/extruding-and-forming-machine-setter-operator-and-tender-synthetic-and-glass-fiber) — median $46,350

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aerospace-composite-technician