---
title: "Animatronics Technician"
description: "Builds, programs and maintains the robotic animated figures used in theme parks, museums, films and live shows."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/animatronics-technician"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Animatronics Technician

**Category:** Architecture and Engineering · **SOC code:** 17-3024 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 17-3024.00

Builds, programs and maintains the robotic animated figures used in theme parks, museums, films and live shows.

Also advertised as: Animatronic Technician; Animated Figure Technician; Show Systems Technician; Show Control Technician; Audio-Animatronics Technician.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $73,900 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.53/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $47,840 to $109,890, with the middle half between $59,780 and $88,540
- **Total US employment:** 15,520
- **Typical entry education:** Associate's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +2.6% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 1,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 45/100 — 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 15,520 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $47,840 |
| 25th | $59,780 |
| 50th (median) | $73,900 |
| 75th | $88,540 |
| 90th | $109,890 |
| Mean (average) | $76,420 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NM | $119,320 | $129,397 | 670 |
| ND | $82,820 | $93,099 | 90 |
| ME | $82,510 | $85,018 | Not published by BLS |
| NV | $82,010 | $82,027 | 220 |
| CT | $81,860 | $79,008 | 140 |
| CA | $81,550 | $73,654 | 1,850 |
| WA | $81,220 | $75,897 | 570 |
| AZ | $80,930 | $80,386 | 120 |
| AK | $80,290 | $78,440 | 40 |
| IL | $79,400 | $79,433 | 250 |
| MT | $77,340 | $81,716 | 70 |
| WI | $76,290 | $81,078 | 580 |
| NH | $75,780 | $72,750 | 80 |
| FL | $75,450 | $72,959 | 500 |
| LA | $75,410 | $85,492 | 120 |

25 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 40 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/animatronics-technician/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/animatronics-technician.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 15,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 16,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 400 jobs, or +2.6%. About as fast as average: 2.6% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 1,400 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 | 31.7% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 29.8% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 11.0% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 9.9% |
| Some College Courses | 7.3% |
| Master's Degree | 5.6% |

## What the work involves

- Inspect and maintain animated figures and show equipment
- Repair and replace pneumatic, hydraulic and electric actuators
- Troubleshoot show control systems, sensors and wiring
- Adjust motion programming synchronized with audio and lighting
- Repair figure skins, costumes and finishes
- Build and test new figures in a fabrication shop
- Keep maintenance records for each figure
- Respond to show-stopping failures during operating hours

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Monitoring — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.9 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Selection — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Control Precision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.8 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), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 7.00 |
| I — Investigative | 4.81 |
| C — Conventional | 4.58 |
| A — Artistic | 2.89 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |
| E — Enterprising | 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 | 88.0 |
| ISTP | 85.3 |
| INTJ | 80.4 |
| ISFJ | 65.6 |
| INTP | 65.3 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ISTP.

## Related occupations

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

- [Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electro-mechanical-and-mechatronics-technologist-and-technician) — median $73,900
- [Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aerospace-engineering-and-operations-technologist-and-technician) — median $82,890
- [Avionics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/avionics-technician) — median $82,280
- [Robotics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/robotics-technician) — median $73,900
- [Calibration Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/calibration-technologist-and-technician) — median $67,820
- [Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronic-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $78,190
- [Electrical and Electronics Repairer, Commercial and Industrial Equipment](https://nuecareer.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-repairer-commercial-and-industrial-equipment) — median $74,090
- [Mechanical Engineering Technologist and Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/mechanical-engineering-technologist-and-technician) — median $74,510
- [Aircraft Structure, Surface, Rigging, and Systems Assembler](https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-structure-surface-rigging-and-systems-assembler) — median $65,380
- [Photonics Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photonics-technician) — median $78,350

## 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/animatronics-technician