---
title: "Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician"
description: "Operate, install, adjust, and maintain integrated computer/communications systems, consoles, simulators, and other data acquisition, test, and…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-3021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-3021.00

Operate, install, adjust, and maintain integrated computer/communications systems, consoles, simulators, and other data acquisition, test, and measurement instruments and equipment, which are used to launch, track, position, and evaluate air and space vehicles. May record and interpret test data.

Also advertised as: Avionics Installation Technician; Avionics Test Technician; Engineering Technician; Engineering Test Technician; Flight Test Instrument Technician; Instrumentation Technician; Systems Test Technician; Test Technician.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $82,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $39.85/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $59,050 to $125,160, with the middle half between $67,680 and $111,280
- **Total US employment:** 11,280
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +11.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 30/100 — 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 11,280 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $59,050 |
| 25th | $67,680 |
| 50th (median) | $82,890 |
| 75th | $111,280 |
| 90th | $125,160 |
| Mean (average) | $91,310 |

### 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 | $125,160 | $116,958 | 1,590 |
| AK | $105,780 | $103,342 | 40 |
| NV | $102,980 | $103,002 | 50 |
| CA | $99,000 | $89,415 | 1,560 |
| CO | $98,990 | $96,058 | 660 |
| MD | $91,820 | $87,482 | 200 |
| OR | $81,100 | $78,463 | 120 |
| VA | $81,040 | $80,155 | 270 |
| MA | $79,420 | $75,097 | 30 |
| CT | $79,410 | $76,643 | 70 |
| OH | $79,310 | $85,487 | 900 |
| FL | $78,560 | $75,967 | 770 |
| KS | $78,350 | $86,990 | 580 |
| TX | $78,350 | $80,726 | 950 |
| UT | $76,680 | $77,561 | 400 |

9 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 24 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 11,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 12,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,400 jobs, or +11.9%. Much faster than average: 11.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,100 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:** Associate's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### 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 |
| --- | --- |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 39.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 33.2% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 19.7% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 7.9% |

## What the work involves

- Record and interpret test data on parts, assemblies, and mechanisms.
- Confer with engineering personnel regarding details and implications of test procedures and results.
- Inspect, diagnose, maintain, and operate test setups and equipment to detect malfunctions.
- Adjust, repair, or replace faulty components of test setups and equipment.
- Identify required data, data acquisition plans, and test parameters, setting up equipment to conform to these specifications.
- Fabricate and install parts and systems to be tested in test equipment, using hand tools, power tools, and test instruments.
- Test aircraft systems under simulated operational conditions, performing systems readiness tests and pre- and post-operational checkouts, to establish design or fabrication parameters.
- Operate and calibrate computer systems and devices to comply with test requirements and to perform data acquisition and analysis.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Science — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 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 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mechanical — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — 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
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 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 | 6.47 |
| C — Conventional | 5.31 |
| I — Investigative | 5.11 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.44 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |
| 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 | 94.4 |
| ISTP | 82.6 |
| INTJ | 78.6 |
| ESTJ | 71.6 |
| ISFJ | 71.5 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Calibration Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/calibration-technologist-and-technician) — median $67,820
- [Avionics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/avionics-technician) — median $82,280
- [Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electro-mechanical-and-mechatronics-technologist-and-technician) — median $73,900
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Automotive Engineering Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/automotive-engineering-technician) — median $74,510
- [Robotics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/robotics-technician) — median $73,900
- [Electrical and Electronics Repairer, Commercial and Industrial Equipment](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-repairer-commercial-and-industrial-equipment) — median $74,090
- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Aircraft Mechanic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-mechanic) — median $79,870
- [Industrial Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $66,120

## 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/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **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-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician