Optional · 1 of 3

Skills that raise your pay

• Aluminum and structural repair

  Trucks and luxury cars use aluminum bodies that need separate tools, a separate clean room and separate training. Few techs have it.

• Refinishing

  Paint is its own career inside the shop. Good painters are scarce and well paid.

• Advanced driver assistance calibration

  After a bumper or windshield repair, the cameras and radar behind it have to be recalibrated. This barely existed fifteen years ago and now every shop needs someone who can do it.

• Estimating

  Writing the repair plan and negotiating with insurers. Less physical, steady pay, and a path to running the shop.

• Manufacturer certifications

  Shops certified by a car maker get sent that maker's collision work, and they need certified techs to keep it.