Keep trucks, buses and heavy engines running. Learn in a program or on the job as a paid helper, with roughly 24,400 openings a year.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $61,770 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $44,530 at the lower end to about $88,740 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$3,200 to $53,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Hawaii and Michigan. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$61,770
Bottom tenth
$44,530
Top tenth
$88,740
The national median is $61,770 a year, the bottom tenth earn $44,530 or less and the top tenth $88,740 or more (2025 federal wage survey). These figures cover bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists, which is exactly this job. City transit garages, utilities and unionized freight shops pay at the top of the range.
$21.41 to $24.30 an hour
The bottom tenth and bottom quarter of bus and truck mechanics, 2025, where first-year technicians usually sit
Many shops start you as a lube technician or a shop helper and move you onto engines as you prove yourself. Some shops offer signing bonuses because they cannot find people.
$36.29 an hour or more
About $75,470 a year in 2025, often senior technicians in transit and utility fleets
Overtime is where a lot of the money is. Trucks break at night and on weekends, and roadside call-outs are part of the work. Shop foreman and service manager jobs are easier on your back.
Roughly, all in
$3,200 to $53,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a registered apprenticeship, which pays you from the first day, so the only real spend is your own hand tools and a certification test fee. Tools are not optional and they are yours: the set starts at a few thousand dollars and keeps growing for your whole career. The high end is a private technical school at $25,000 to $45,000 for about twelve months plus a fuller tool set, for the same job that a community college program at roughly $4,000 a year leads to. File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) before paying any school, because a Pell Grant can cover most of a community college program and is never repaid.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) before you pay for anything. Pell Grants can cover most of a community college program and are never repaid. Private schools cost several times as much for a similar job at the end, so compare hard.
Tool allowance
Many fleets give a yearly amount toward tools, or hand you a shop set so you never buy your own.
A public pension
School district, city transit and state highway shops enroll you in the public employee retirement system.
Union membership
Common in transit, freight and municipal fleets, with set pay steps and overtime rules.
Paid manufacturer training
Cummins, Detroit Diesel and Peterbilt courses, usually paid for and paid time.
Indoor, year round work
Unlike most construction trades, the work does not stop in winter.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two honest routes: pay for a program first, or get hired as a helper and learn on the clock.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Auto shop, welding and math if your school has them. A clean driving record matters from here on.
Training or a first shop job
1 to 2 years
A 1 to 2 year community college diesel program, a registered apprenticeship, or hire on as a lube technician and learn in the bay.
Build hours in the bay
2 to 3 years
Brakes, suspension, electrical, then engines and aftertreatment. This is where you actually learn the trade.
ASE (National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence) certification
Year 2 or 3
The medium and heavy truck test series, T1 through T8. You need about two years of hands on experience before the certificate is issued, or one year plus a two year degree.
Specialize
Ongoing
Engine performance and emissions, transit buses, refrigerated trailers, or heavy equipment.
Auto shop or small engines
The single most useful class for this job.
Math
Pressures, clearances, torque values and gear ratios, all day.
Physics
Hydraulics and combustion are physics with grease on them.
Computer classes
Modern diagnosis is done on a laptop plugged into the truck.
48 states do not license diesel mechanics. Michigan certifies heavy truck mechanics by speciality and Hawaii registers truck mechanics, though beginners can work under a certified one. Three other credentials come up. ASE (National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence) certification is voluntary but many employers look for it and some require it. Federal rules require a refrigerant handling certification before you touch vehicle air conditioning. And a lot of shops want a CDL (commercial driver's license) so you can road test the trucks you just repaired, which the employer will usually help you get.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Master Medium and Heavy Truck technician
Passing the full ASE (National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence) truck series. The clearest pay signal in the trade.
Diesel engine performance and emissions
Particulate filters and exhaust fluid systems are where most modern faults live.
CDL (commercial driver's license), Class A or B
Road testing, ferrying trucks, and a fallback career if your body gives out.
Welding
Frame and exhaust repairs stay in the shop instead of going out to a specialist.
Manufacturer training
Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Allison and Volvo courses. Dealers look for badged technicians.
Your own truck to practice on
An old diesel pickup teaches more than any textbook.
Patience with paperwork
Fleet work runs on inspection sheets and repair orders that have to be right.
Strong hands and a stronger back
Parts on a truck weigh what parts on a car weigh, multiplied.
Spanish
Useful in a lot of shops and yards.
The same skills run marine engines, standby generators in hospitals and data centers, locomotives, mining equipment, farm machinery and military vehicles. Generator and marine work is a less known branch of the trade. Plenty of technicians also end up on the other side of the counter as parts specialists, service writers, fleet managers or manufacturer field engineers, which is how people stay in the industry after twenty years of lifting.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at 7am, or on the night shift so trucks are ready for the morning. Check the repair orders waiting for you. A brake job on a tractor unit, then a truck that will not make power: plug in the laptop, read the fault codes, test the fuel system, find a failed sensor or a clogged filter. Lunch with the radio on. Afternoon is a scheduled inspection, greasing, fluids, checking every light and line, filling out the sheet. Wash up for fifteen minutes before you go home.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
A modern highway truck runs dozens of sensors and several control modules, and the emissions system alone has its own filters, sensors and fluid tank. Most days you spend as much time with a diagnostic laptop as with a wrench.
The federal career profile counts 316,000 bus and truck mechanics in 2025. Growth is only average, but retirements and people leaving the trade still open about 24,400 jobs a year.
In the federal survey, 37% of diesel mechanics said a high school diploma is all the job needs, and 39% said a certificate from a program after high school.
School districts run bus fleets that have to be kept inspected and legal. Those shop jobs usually come with a public pension, regular daytime hours and quieter summers.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Vehicles and equipment first, then the rest of the field. See every career in skilled trades.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.