Appliance Repair Technician
🧺Fixes washing machines, fridges, dishwashers and cookers in customers' homes: finds the fault, replaces modules and sensors, explains how to avoid it next time.
Prospects & pay
What the work is like
💼 Job market
🇺🇸 $56.4k a year on average · +1.9% jobs by 2035 · 2,800 openings a year
Home appliance repairers — US: Census ACS 2020–24 (full-time), BLS projections 2025–35
🇬🇧 £41.8k median a year · 47,000 jobs
Electrical service and maintenance mechanics and repairers — UK: ONS ASHE 2025 (full-time)
🤖 AI & automation
AI can look up an error code and a wiring diagram, but taking a machine apart, finding the frayed wire and fixing it on the spot is a technician's job.
Who it suits
Interests: 🔧 Making things by hand, ⚙️ Tech and engineering, 🤝 Helping and caring.
Key strengths: manual dexterity, logic.
Where to study
- Course Appliance repair training; F-Gas certificate for refrigeration (EU/UK), EPA 608 (US)
- Vocational Ausbildung Elektroniker für Geräte und Systeme (DE); electronics technician course at college
- Apprenticeship Electrical / service engineering apprenticeship
Key school subjects (A-level / IB / AP): Physics, Maths.
🧗 Courses and training with a manufacturer or service company; fridge work needs a refrigerant certificate (F-Gas in Europe, EPA 608 in the US). A more formal route is an electronics Ausbildung in Germany.
Things to know
🧳 Frequent work trips🛢️ Dirt, noise, smells
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