What maintenance technicians are paid in 2026, and how few postings say so
Seven in ten US maintenance technician postings never state a wage. Of the 18,353 collected in 2026 to August 31, 5,438 stated one, and their coverage-adjusted median is $51,802, unchanged from the same window in 2025. This page gives the quartiles, the disclosure rate and the method.
$51,802
National Median
Seven in ten maintenance technician jobs posted in the US this year do not say what they pay. Of the 18,353 postings collected between January 1 and August 31, 2026, 5,438 stated a figure. Their median, corrected for which states disclose, is $51,802 a year. The unadjusted median of the same postings is $52,000.
That is base pay as the employer wrote it, with no overtime, no on-call pay and no shift differential in it. Half of the disclosing postings sit between $44,720 and $62,400, and the median has not moved since the same window of 2025. This is the largest sample in wave one and the quietest market in it.
The figures: what maintenance technician postings state
Two rows, because the second one is the one to quote. As posted is what the 5,438 disclosing postings say. Coverage-adjusted re-weights them so each state carries its share of all 18,353 collected postings rather than its share of the ones that disclosed. That correction moves the median down 0.4 percent, the smallest shift of the four roles published in this wave.
| Measure | As posted | Coverage-adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $45,760 | $44,720 |
| Median | $52,000 | $51,802 |
| 75th percentile | $62,400 | $62,400 |
Base pay, annualized, 5,438 US postings that stated pay, collected January 1 to August 31, 2026.
Only 29.6% of maintenance technician postings state pay
5,438 of the 18,353 collected postings carried a usable annual figure. 12,839 gave no pay information at all. Another 76 gave something unusable: 34 quoted a shift rate with no hours behind it, 41 fell outside the collection window, and one was not in US dollars. So this page describes under a third of the advertised market, and it is the third that talks.
Disclosure is this low across the trades, and it is measurable rather than a guess. In the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force, 53.9 percent of postings state pay, against 33.8 percent everywhere else, and the median role pays 10.1 percent more in those states. That pushes any median built from disclosing postings upward. Re-weighting by state removes most of it, and here the correction is 0.4 percent, from $52,000 to $51,802.
The silence is the thing to plan around. If you are looking at a posting with no figure on it, what a DOE listing actually means covers the phrasings employers use instead of a number.
Posted pay is unchanged from a year ago
The 2025 comparison uses the same titles, the same country filter and the same calendar window, January 1 to early September, so a flat result is a measurement rather than a gap in the data. The 2025 median was $52,000 across 19,511 disclosing postings. The 2026 median is $52,000 across 5,438. Not a dollar of movement at the midpoint.
Those two counts differ by a lot, and that is a fact about collection rather than about hiring. Posting volume on this pipeline swings by a factor of twenty between months, so this page makes no claim about how many maintenance jobs exist. The medians are comparable. The counts are not. A 0.0 percent change in posted base pay is what puts the role in the competitive band on PayScope's market label, which reads the label as a statement about pay movement and nothing else.
One caveat sits underneath the flat median. Three posted titles map to this role, and they do not pay the same: maintenance mechanic postings state a median of $63,648 on 608 disclosing ads, against $52,000 for maintenance technician on 4,593. If your title says mechanic, the role median understates you by about 22 percent.
Pay by level, on the postings that state one
The ladder below is built on the 915 postings that state a level. The other 4,523 usable postings state none, and their median of $52,000 is the role median exactly, so the headline figure on this page is those 4,523. Read the ladder as a description of postings that name a rung, not as a description of the market. This is the largest level sample in wave one and it still covers only 16.8 percent of the disclosing postings.
| Level | Postings | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | 283 | $41,902 | $47,570 | $56,160 | 1 to 2 years |
| Mid | 447 | $48,194 | $55,089 | $63,887 | 2 to 3 years |
| Senior | 118 | $55,057 | $68,120 | $80,496 | 3 to 5 years |
| Lead | 67 | $54,683 | $60,320 | $67,900 | 1 to 3 years |
Every rung here clears the 30-posting floor, which is why all four are shown. The experience ranges are the ranges those postings state, and the lead range of 1 to 3 years is the clue to the next section.
Why senior sits above lead
Senior maintenance postings state a median of $68,120 and lead postings $60,320. In the trades a lead posting is usually a shift or crew lead on an hourly rate, with scheduling and a small crew attached, while the senior rung is a licensed or specialist technician doing the harder diagnostic work. The stated experience gives it away: lead asks for 1 to 3 years, senior for 3 to 5. So the four rows above are a ladder of titles, not a ladder of seniority, and anyone reading lead as the top of this role's pay range is reading it wrong.
How these figures were produced
The source is PayScope's own collection of US job postings, deduplicated by posting id and filtered to the United States, covering January 1 to August 31, 2026. 18,353 postings matched the role and 5,438 stated a usable annual pay figure. Every figure on this page is base pay as the employer wrote it, with overtime, on-call pay, shift differentials, per-call work and bonuses all excluded.
Three posted titles map to this role:
- maintenance technician
- maintenance mechanic
- maintenance tech
The figures are regenerated monthly on this method, and August 31 is the cut-off for every number here. September postings exist in the corpus but that month's collection is too thin to sit beside the rest of the year.
One limit worth stating plainly. These figures describe what employers advertise, not what technicians take home. In a trade where overtime and call-outs are routine, a posted base of $52,000 and a W-2 of $65,000 are compatible facts. Use the figures to check an offer against the market, not to predict a paycheck. If you work on heating and cooling equipment specifically, HVAC technician pay runs about 45 percent higher at the median on the same method. Other roles are on the salary guide index.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median salary for a maintenance technician in the US?
$51,802 a year, coverage-adjusted, from 5,438 US job postings that stated pay and were collected between January 1 and August 31, 2026. The unadjusted median of the same postings is $52,000. Half of them sit between $44,720 and $62,400, and all figures are base pay as posted.
How many maintenance technician job postings state pay?
29.6 percent. Of 18,353 US postings collected in 2026 through August 31, 5,438 carried a usable pay figure, 12,839 carried none, and 76 quoted something that could not be annualized. Disclosure is higher in the thirteen states with pay-transparency laws in force, at 53.9 percent against 33.8 percent everywhere else.
Why is the senior maintenance technician figure higher than the lead figure?
Senior postings state a median of $68,120 and lead postings $60,320, on 118 and 67 postings respectively, collected to August 31, 2026. A lead posting in the trades is usually a shift or crew lead on an hourly rate, while the senior rung is a licensed or specialist technician. Lead postings also ask for less experience, 1 to 3 years against 3 to 5.
Are these maintenance technician figures base pay or total pay?
Base pay as the employer posted it, annualized. Overtime, on-call pay, shift differentials, per-call work and bonuses are all excluded. In a trade with routine overtime, actual earnings often sit well above the posted base.
Has maintenance technician pay gone up in 2026?
No. The median posted base is $52,000, the same as the median for January to early September 2025, measured on the same titles and the same window. That is a 0.0 percent change, and it is why the role carries a competitive rather than a hot label.