Aircraft mechanic job outlook: 6% through 2035, and 13,100 openings a year

Projected growth

6%

Aircraft and avionics mechanics & technicians, 2025–2035

Openings per year

13,100

Growth plus replacements, BLS average

Jobs (2025)

159,800

Occupation family, Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook projects overall employment of aircraft and avionics equipment mechanics and technicians to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035 — faster than the average for all occupations. About 13,100 openings a year, on average, over the decade. Many of those openings are replacements: people retiring, leaving, or changing shops. Growth is the smaller slice. A 6 percent headline is not a job in your city.

Florida can train faster than it hires at the wage you want. Washington can hire and still be expensive. The cork board in a hangar office is the local version of this table. Read both. Then read aircraft mechanic salary so you do not confuse demand with a first check. The FAA path still sits between you and any of those openings.

What 6 percent actually means

Faster than average is the Handbook’s phrase. It is a national employment projection for the family, not a promise that every 147 graduate gets a night sort. 6 percent on a 2025 base of about 159,800 jobs is expansion. The 13,100 openings a year are expansion plus replacements. Replacements dominate in trades with an age bulge. Aviation maintenance has one. That is good news if you will take the shift. It is not a bidding war in every county.

Projections miss recessions, hiring freezes, and a 145 that just lost a contract. Use them to decide whether the occupation exists in a decade. Use the cork board to decide whether it exists on Tuesday. Anyone who quotes 6 percent as a salary argument is mixing desks. Pay is median $79,870 for mechanics, $82,280 for avionics, $80,180 blended — May 2025. Outlook is this page.

What 13,100 openings means for a new ticket

• There is work. It is not evenly distributed, and it is not all $40/hour nights.
• Replacements favor people who will take the shift, the city, or the 145 that is not Instagram.
• Avionics and A&P are in the same outlook family. Your offer is still a specific SOC and shop.
• Education typical is a postsecondary nondegree award — the 147 path — not a bachelor’s.
• A thick junior bench in a training-mill town can coexist with a shortage two states over.

If you will not relocate and you will not work nights, you are competing for the comfortable slice of 13,100. That slice is smaller than the headline. If you will do both, the starting-pay conversation gets easier. The ticket still has to be real. Outlook does not waive 65.77.

Growth is the smaller slice

People leaving, retiring, and changing shops create most of the openings in this projection. That is why a hangar can be “desperate” and still picky: they need a person who will stay, sign, and show up on the night bid. A school that sells 6 percent as “they have to take you” is skipping that sentence. Bring a log, a tool box, and a willingness to be the replacement, not the intern who wanted Tuesday–Friday days.

Military separations are part of the replacement story. They are not automatic A&Ps. Military to A&P is how those hours become a ticket. Until then, they are a résumé. The outlook counts jobs, not uniforms.

The map is the real outlook

MRO density, airline hubs, cargo sorts, and GA fields do not sit evenly on a U.S. map. A state that trains a lot of A&Ps can show a softer mean on the wage table and a crowded junior bench. A state with a hub and a housing problem can hire and still be a pay cut after rent. Cross-check OEWS and a lease before you celebrate a 6 percent slide. The AMT pay scale desk is how you read the offer once you get one.

Canada is a different labor market and a different license. Transport Canada aviation rules do not fill a U.S. 145 opening. If your plan is “I’ll just work up north,” that is a different certificate conversation, not a BLS footnote.

What “typical education” is telling you

The Handbook’s typical entry-level education for the family is a postsecondary nondegree award. That is the Part 147 shape, not a bachelor’s. You can still use the experience path under 65.77. You can still come from the military. A four-year degree is not the federal door. Some employers prefer one. Read the posting. Do not let a university sell a bachelor’s as the only way to join a 6 percent occupation.

Avionics benches may want electronics background or GROL on day one. That is a shop filter, not a BLS education line. The family outlook still includes those jobs. Your path still has to match the card.

Outlook without the wage desk is a poster

Schools will keep leading with demand because demand is a pleasant slide. Your job is to ask where last year’s class went, at what wage, on what shift, and how many still work there. A 6 percent national projection cannot answer that. A placement officer who will not answer it has answered it. Pair that conversation with how to get an A&P so you are not buying a calendar against a fantasy map.

If you already hold the ticket and you are not seeing the 13,100 openings, the usual constraints are geography, shift, and a résumé that does not name aircraft. Fix those before you conclude the Handbook is lying. It is a national photograph. You are a local applicant. Move the photograph or move yourself. Those are the two levers. Complaining about 6 percent is not a third.

Avionics-bound readers should do the same drill with benches, not only line hangars. The family outlook includes you. The cork board may not. Call the shops. Ask about GROL. Then read avionics salary so the wage row matches the job you are actually chasing. The Handbook will still say 6 percent in 2025–2035 the next time a counselor opens it. Your job is to treat that as weather, not as a hiring letter, and to keep the FAA become-a-mechanic checklist in the same browser tab as the cork board.

Median pay for the family is $80,180 a year, $38.55 an hour (May 2025). Mechanics alone: $79,870, about $38.40 an hour. Avionics: $82,280. The lowest tenth of mechanics earned less than $48,780; the highest tenth more than $128,890. Growth of 6 percent does not move you from the 10th to the 90th. A shift, a city, and years on the tools do. Keep this page and the Pay desk open together when a school starts talking “demand.”

If you are choosing a door, how long to become an A&P is the calendar. Outlook is the argument that the calendar is worth it in a national sense. Only you can decide if it is worth it in your zip code.

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, aircraft and avionics equipment mechanics and technicians. Verify the live table before you make a move. Aviation Titans is independent editorial.