Time Machine

Mechanical engineering technicians

Name: Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians: employment and wages since 1960
Creator: Future History
License: https://futurehistory.earth/terms

Official title Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians (SOC 17-3027)

Also called Automotive engineering technicians

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 36,190 US mechanical engineering technicians, with median pay of $74,510 a year. The earliest figure here is a Census count of 55,000 from 1960, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for mechanical engineering technicians: Additive manufacturing + PLM software + automated CMM measurement, 2012 to 2023.

Official statistic: latest count and pay.Researched context: earliest figure.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 1.3% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

Official statistic

AI exposure studies

40.8% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023 Official statistic

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35.

Last updated 31 October 2026.

Cite this page

APA

Future History. (2026, October 31). Mechanical engineering technicians: jobs and pay since 1960 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/17-3027

Chicago

Future History. "Mechanical engineering technicians: jobs and pay since 1960." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 31, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/17-3027.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_17_3027, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Mechanical engineering technicians: jobs and pay since 1960}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/17-3027}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-31. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

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195019752000now

2026

Known then as Engineering Technician / Mechanical Technician (postwar manufacturing era)

Known then as Mechanical Engineering Technician (Census OCC 215 era)

Known then as Mechanical Engineering Technician / Engineering Technologist (CAD transition era)

Known then as Mechanical Engineering Technicians (BLS SOC 17-3027 pre-2018)

Known then as Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians (BLS SOC 17-3027, 2018 SOC revision)

Known today as Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians (BLS SOC 17-3027, 2018 SOC revision)

Projected to still be called Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians (BLS SOC 17-3027, 2018 SOC revision)

Data from the May 2025 survey

US Employment

36K

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic

Report an error

Median Annual Wage

$74,510

≈ $72,600 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic

Report an error

Beat · 1946

ECPD (the Engineers' Council for Professional Development, predecessor to ABET) begins accrediting engineering technology degree programs, ten years after it started accrediting engineering degree programs in 1936. This formal accreditation creates the credential infrastructure for the mechanical engineering technician tier: graduates of ETAC-accredited programs carry a recognized qualification that distinguishes them from both degreed engineers above and skilled tradespeople below. Community colleges and technical institutes across the United States build two-year and four-year engineering technology programs through the late 1940s and 1950s to absorb returning GI Bill veterans and fill the postwar manufacturing workforce gap.

Beat · 1956

Boeing acquires its first numerically controlled machine tools from Kearney and Trecker and Stromberg-Carlson, marking a significant industrial adoption point for NC machining. The NC technology, developed at MIT under Air Force funding, creates a new class of technical work that mechanical engineering technicians are trained to perform: programming tool paths, setting up NC machines, and verifying the resulting parts against blueprint tolerances. Aerospace and defense become the leading early employers of NC-capable mechanical technicians throughout the late 1950s and 1960s.

Beat · 1982

Autodesk releases AutoCAD in December 1982, the first major CAD program designed for IBM PC-class computers. Before AutoCAD, CAD systems ran on mainframes or minicomputers costing tens of thousands of dollars; the IBM PC version ran on a machine any small engineering firm could afford. By March 1986, AutoCAD has become the most ubiquitous CAD program worldwide. For mechanical engineering technicians, this is the most disruptive single-tool transition since the occupation was formalized: the hand-drafting skills that took years to develop are now a secondary competency, and CAD software fluency becomes the primary skill employers seek. Drafting departments thin out as individual technicians with CAD software produce work that previously required multiple drafters.

Beat · 1995

SolidWorks releases its first product, SolidWorks 95, in November 1995. It is one of the first 3D solid-modeling CAD applications designed to run on a standard Windows desktop PC, rather than the expensive Unix workstations that had previously hosted 3D modeling software (PTC Pro/Engineer, Dassault CATIA). Within a few years, SolidWorks becomes the dominant 3D modeling tool in mechanical engineering departments at mid-size manufacturers and engineering services firms. The shift from 2D CAD to 3D solid modeling changes the nature of the technician's design support role: the technician now builds a full parametric 3D model from which 2D drawings are derived automatically, and the model itself can be sent to additive manufacturing equipment to produce a prototype directly.

Beat · 2001

The Sydney Accord is signed in 2001, establishing mutual international recognition of engineering technologist qualifications between signatory nations (initially Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The Accord mirrors the Washington Accord (for engineering degrees) and the Dublin Accord (for engineering technician qualifications, signed 2002) and creates a framework for international mobility of credentialed engineering technologists. For US practitioners, the Accord provides formal recognition of their ABET-accredited credentials in signatory countries, opening career paths in international manufacturing and engineering services.

Beat · 2018

The 2018 SOC revision merges the previously separate "Mechanical Engineering Technicians" (former SOC 17-3027) and "Mechanical Engineering Technologists" codes into a single SOC 17-3027 "Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians" category. The merger reflects the practical reality that employers deploy two-year (technician) and four-year (technologist) engineering technology graduates in overlapping roles and that the distinction is more about education level than about distinct occupational tasks. The merged code shows employment of approximately 48,000 in the first post-merger OEWS survey (May 2018), declining to 38,300 by May 2024 as domestic manufacturing continues its long structural contraction.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures, ONS ASHE figures (UK pay and jobs) and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

How it began · 1946

In 1946, the Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the body that would eventually become ABET) began accrediting a new kind of educational program: engineering technology degrees, distinct from the four-year engineering degrees the council had been accrediting since 1936. The timing was not coincidental. The war had demonstrated, on an industrial scale, that modern manufacturing required a workforce tier between the degreed engineer who designed a system and the machinist or assembler who built it: someone who could read a blueprint and understand its tolerances, run a test rig and interpret the gauges, calibrate a piece of production equipment, and document what they found in terms engineers could act on. The Army and Navy had created their own informal versions of this tier during the war years, training men to operate and maintain complex mechanical systems through accelerated programs that combined mathematics, mechanical drawing, and hands-on equipment operation. When the war ended, the GI Bill sent hundreds of thousands of veterans into technical programs, and the engineering technology degree was there to receive them. Community colleges and technical institutes across the country built associate degree programs in mechanical engineering technology through the late 1940s and 1950s, feeding a manufacturing economy that was expanding at a rate unmatched before or since. The role that graduates of these programs filled was specific: they occupied the test labs, the prototype shops, and the production-engineering departments of American factories, doing the empirical work that made an engineer's calculations real. They built the test fixtures, ran the environmental chambers, took the measurements, wrote the reports, and kept the precision equipment calibrated and traceable to NIST standards. By the time the Bureau of the Census created the occupation category "Mechanical engineering technicians" (code 215 in the 1990 Census classification), the role had been a distinct and recognized profession for more than four decades.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace mechanical engineering technicians? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say

Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
Target year 2035
+1.3%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 17-3027 (Mechanical engineering technologists and technicians): 36.9 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 37.4 thousand in 2035, a change of +0.5 thousand (+1.3%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (1.2% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error

How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)

Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.

Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
40.8%
of tasks
What this measures
Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 17-3027.00 Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians. Shown: human-rated β = 0.408, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0.224 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.592; GPT-4-rated β 0.48. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.
Official statisticReport an error

Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for mechanical engineering technicians

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you here Calculate required capacities for equipment of proposed system…

to obtain specified performance and submit data to engineering personnel for approval.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Review project instructions and blueprints to ascertain test…

specifications, procedures, and objectives, and test nature of technical problems such as redesign.^[2]

Where your edge is

AI is sitting alongside you here Draft detail drawing or sketch for drafting room completion…

or to request parts fabrication by machine, sheet or wood shops.^[2]

Where your edge is

Tools of the era

How has the work of mechanical engineering technicians changed since 1946?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

Manual drafting + analog instruments (slide rules, oscilloscopes, hand gauges)
In the first generation of the occupation, a mechanical engineering technician's toolkit was almost entirely physical: a drafting table with T-square, triangles, and compass; a slide rule for rapid calculations; a set of precision hand instruments (micrometers, dial gauges, vernier calipers); and whatever test equipment the lab operated (strain gauges, pressure transducers, analog oscilloscopes). The work was tactile and spatial. Blueprints were hand-drawn; test data was recorded by hand on data sheets; and every calculation that went beyond mental arithmetic ran through the slide rule.
Numerical control (NC) tape programming + early electronic test equipment
The introduction of numerical control machine tools in the 1950s (pioneered at MIT under Air Force contract and first adopted commercially at aerospace manufacturers including Boeing by 1956) created a new class of technical work: NC programming and setup. By the mid-1960s, NC mills and lathes were established in aerospace and defense manufacturing, and mechanical technicians who could read a part drawing, determine the tool path, and punch the paper tape that drove the machine were in demand. This was the first technology in the occupation's history that placed the technician between the engineer's drawing and the physical part in a computational capacity: NC programming required mathematical thinking, not just instrument skill. Simultaneously, electronic test instruments improved dramatically: analog oscilloscopes gained wider bandwidth, digital voltmeters appeared (the first practical digital voltmeter was commercialized by Non-Linear Systems in 1952, but became common lab equipment through the 1960s), and data-acquisition systems that could log multiple channels simultaneously appeared in research labs. The combination of NC programming and electronic test instrumentation raised the technical ceiling of the role.
Effect on the work
NC programming created a new specialty within mechanical engineering technician work that commanded premium wages; aerospace and defense employers paid significantly above manufacturing averages for technicians with NC programming skills through the 1970s and early 1980s.
2D CAD workstations (AutoCAD from 1982, dominant by 1986)
AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 for IBM PC and CP/M platforms, and by March 1986 it had become the most ubiquitous CAD program worldwide. For mechanical engineering technicians, the transition from drafting tables to CAD workstations was the single largest change in the daily experience of the job since the occupation was formalized. Drawing by hand with pencil and ink on vellum was physically skilled work that took years to become fast and accurate; CAD made revision trivial (redraw a section by editing the file rather than erasure and re-inking), made scaling and dimensioning consistent, and made the drawing a digital asset that could be stored, shared, and modified. The transition was not seamless: early AutoCAD required significant learning investment, workstations were expensive (the full CAD setup cost several thousand dollars in early 1980s prices), and the software's learning curve disadvantaged older technicians who had mastered the hand-drafting discipline. CNC programming also shifted to software during this era, with G-code generated by CAM packages rather than hand-punched on tape.
Effect on the work
The AutoCAD transition compressed the drafting component of the technician role: tasks that had required hours of hand-drafting time became faster, but employers recognized this and reduced drafter headcounts in some contexts. The productivity gain was real but uneven in how it was shared between employers and workers.
3D solid modeling (SolidWorks 1995, Pro/E, CATIA) + data acquisition systems
SolidWorks was first released in November 1995 as one of the earliest 3D solid modeling tools designed to run on a desktop PC (rather than expensive Unix workstations). The move from 2D CAD to 3D solid modeling changed the nature of the technician's design support work fundamentally: instead of producing 2D drawings from which a machinist would interpret the 3D form, the technician now built a full 3D model from which 2D drawings were derived automatically. SolidWorks and its competitors (PTC Pro/Engineer, Dassault CATIA) also integrated simulation capabilities: a technician could apply loads to a 3D model and see stress distributions (finite element analysis) without sending the work to a separate analysis group. This elevated the complexity of the role but also made individual technicians significantly more capable. Simultaneously, data acquisition hardware became affordable and PC-connected: National Instruments' LabVIEW (first released 1986) and competitive systems made it possible for a technician to build a custom multi-channel test system in software rather than hardware, replacing racks of analog instruments with a laptop and a USB DAQ module.
Effect on the work
The 3D modeling transition raised the technical floor for entry-level technicians (now required to operate complex software from day one) while making experienced practitioners significantly more productive, compressing the time to produce a prototype drawing from days to hours.
Additive manufacturing (3D printing prototypes) + PLM software + automated CMM measurement
The 2010s brought additive manufacturing into the mainstream of mechanical engineering prototyping work. For the mechanical engineering technician, this added a new capability: parts that were previously sent to an outside prototype house could now be produced in-house overnight. Simultaneously, coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) gained automated probe routines controlled by software: the technician set up the part, programmed the inspection routine, and the CMM ran unattended. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software (Siemens Teamcenter, PTC Windchill, Dassault Enovia) became the document control and revision-management backbone in larger engineering organizations, adding a new layer of software literacy requirements for technicians who released drawings or managed test records.
AI-assisted simulation and generative design (Ansys SimAI, Autodesk Fusion 360 generative)
By 2023-2025, AI-assisted engineering tools had entered the mainstream CAD and simulation workflows that mechanical engineering technicians use daily. Autodesk Fusion 360's generative design module uses machine learning to propose multiple design variants optimized for weight, strength, and manufacturability from a set of constraints. Ansys SimAI and comparable tools use neural-network surrogate models trained on finite element simulation runs to predict structural behavior orders of magnitude faster than running the full FEA solver, making it practical for a technician to screen dozens of design variations in an afternoon. These tools augment the technician's design-support and test-planning work rather than replacing it: the AI proposes geometry or estimates performance, but a human practitioner must specify the constraints, validate the output against physical test results, and make the final engineering judgment. The present-day mechanical engineering technologist who can fluently operate 3D modeling, simulation, PLM, and additive manufacturing tools while applying sound measurement and test methodology is substantially more productive than a counterpart of any earlier era.

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Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians employment and pay by year

On record since1946

Latest US employment36,190 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Latest US median pay$74,510 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Outlook+1.3% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

View all 25 years of cited US data, each linked to its source

Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians in the US: employment and pay by year, with sources
Year	US employment	Annual pay (median unless marked)	Source	Report
1960	55,000	n/a	Decennial Census 1960 [1] Researched context	Report
1990	97,000	$29,500	Decennial Census 1990 [2] Researched context	Report
2003	50,510	$41,890	BLS OEWS May 2003 [3] Official statistic	Report
2004	46,990	$43,400	BLS OEWS May 2004 [3] Official statistic	Report
2005	46,580	$44,830	BLS OEWS May 2005 [3] Official statistic	Report
2006	46,660	$45,850	BLS OEWS May 2006 [3] Official statistic	Report
2007	46,230	$47,280	BLS OEWS May 2007 [3] Official statistic	Report
2008	45,770	$48,130	BLS OEWS May 2008 [3] Official statistic	Report
2009	43,580	$48,970	BLS OEWS May 2009 [3] Official statistic	Report
2010	44,170	$50,110	BLS OEWS May 2010 [3] Official statistic	Report
2011	44,760	$51,350	BLS OEWS May 2011 [3] Official statistic	Report
2012	46,630	$51,980	BLS OEWS May 2012 [3] Official statistic	Report
2013	46,090	$52,390	BLS OEWS May 2013 [3] Official statistic	Report
2014	47,560	$53,530	BLS OEWS May 2014 [3] Official statistic	Report
2015	48,910	$53,910	BLS OEWS May 2015 [3] Official statistic	Report
2016	45,510	$54,480	BLS OEWS May 2016 [3] Official statistic	Report
2017	43,390	$55,360	BLS OEWS May 2017 [3] Official statistic	Report
2018	41,460	$56,250	BLS OEWS May 2018 [3] Official statistic	Report
2019	42,820	$56,980	BLS OEWS May 2019 [3] Official statistic	Report
2020	39,880	$58,230	BLS OEWS May 2020 [3] Official statistic	Report
2021	40,180	$60,460	BLS OEWS May 2021 [3] Official statistic	Report
2022	39,610	$61,990	BLS OEWS May 2022 [3] Official statistic	Report
2023	38,930	$64,020	BLS OEWS May 2023 [3] Official statistic	Report
2024	37,450	$68,730	BLS OEWS May 2024 [3] Official statistic	Report
2025	36,190	$74,510	BLS OEWS May 2025 [3] Official statistic	Report

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See all roles in Engineering

Manual drafting + analog instruments (slide rules, oscilloscopes, hand gauges) (1946 to 1965)

Numerical control (NC) tape programming + early electronic test equipment (1965 to 1983)

2D CAD workstations (AutoCAD from 1982, dominant by 1986) (1983 to 1995)

3D solid modeling (SolidWorks 1995, Pro/E, CATIA) + data acquisition systems (1995 to 2012)

Additive manufacturing (3D printing prototypes) + PLM software + automated CMM measurement (2012 to 2023)

AI-assisted simulation and generative design (Ansys SimAI, Autodesk Fusion 360 generative) (2023 to present)

Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians employment and pay by year

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