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Maintenance, service and repair

Careers in maintenance, service and repair

There are lots of different roles within maintenance, service and repair.

You could:

  • repair faults in machines or systems
  • check that equipment is working safely
  • follow diagrams or instructions

There are roles at all levels with lots of routes in. You can find out about the different entry routes you can take on the job profiles.

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Examples of careers in maintenance, service and repair

Within this sub-sector, you'll find a range of career opportunities.

We've selected a few examples to show the variety of roles, levels and training times. Training time is the amount of time it takes to learn and gain the experience needed to do the job well.

Click on any of the job profiles to view information on entry routes, salary and progressions opportunities, plus much more.

View all careers in this sub-sector

Hear from people working in maintenance, service and repair

Hear from individuals working in maintenance, service and repair to find out about the jobs they do to see if a career in this sub-sector could be for you.

Meet motor mechanics Sian and Stuart

Sian and Stuart talk about being fleet vehicle apprentice technicians.

1 minute 30 second watch

View transcript

Stuart: Hello, I'm Stuart.

Sian: Hi I’m Sian.

Stuart: And we are fleet vehicle apprentice technicians at East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Sian: So before I started my apprenticeship I was in sixth form. It didn't quite suit what I wanted. I wanted something more hands on, but with structure. And then I found the apprenticeship with EMAS.

Stuart: I've always had a sort of passion for fixing vehicles. I’ve got a qualification in motorcycles originally. Wasn’t very good at school, I didn’t really [do well] academically. I've got ADHD and dyslexia so I found out in later life. So going back now with all the stuff that helps you out now, it's a lot easier than I thought.

Sian: Having the more practical side of it all works a lot better for me. I do like to be hands on, with this it's constantly, it's nonstop. There's always something new for you to learn.

Stuart: I quite enjoy working on a variety of vehicles. We've obviously got the standard ambulances, but there's electric and hybrid vehicles coming through. We've got the vans as well, so it's not all about ambulances.

Sian: For the first year I was brand new to mechanics. I didn't know anything. So even changing brakes was new to me. Now I'm taking out engines on my own and things like that.

Stuart: So there's always something new to to get your hands around and have a go at.

Sian: It is stripping things down, seeing how it works, and then figuring out the problems. There's a lot of problem solving with it as well. I could be given brakes one day and then the next day I'm doing an engine, so I'm never, it's not like I'm doing the same job constantly.

Stuart: Then all the equipment inside as well, which is, you don’t get on a general vehicle. So the stretcher side of it, servicing all of them as well, which is nice because it's a bit of a change from the service work you get.

Sian: Obviously with the ambulance service, if an ambulance isn't running, we can't go, like people [ambulance staff] can't go to call outs. So therefore people aren’t receiving the ambulances. So a big part of it is getting the vehicle on the road and making it nice and safe to transport someone to hospital.

Stuart: They save lives. So getting them out on the road is quite self-satisfying, you know it's going out to do something good.

Watch other videos

Hear from others working in maintenance, service and repair to find out more about their role.

Meet heat pump engineers Oliver and Ben

Oliver is a low carbon heating technician apprentice and Ben leads a team of heat pump installers.

1 minute 15 second watch

View transcript

I'm Oliver. I'm doing the Low Carbon Heating Technician Apprenticeship at Aira.

So it's one day a week at college. And the rest out on site or in the academy. We're learning, we’re shadowing, doing practical bits. Work with the installers. You'd help them if they wanted you to hang a rad [radiator] and pipe it up, whatever. You'll do that. But if they want you to just shadow and learn different ways of doing stuff, you'll learn different ways of doing stuff and make notes for your college work.

So as well as all the low carbon stuff, we're learning all general plumbing skills and then you've got to work with customers. So all your communication skills telling them how the heat pump works, et cetera.

Hi I'm Ben. I'm a team leader of installers in Yorkshire. And we’re here in the Aira Academy in Sheffield.

So I come from a gas background. I’ve been in the heating industry for over 20 years. And then I saw this job advertisement at Aira, got the job as an installer and then got progression into team leader role.

So my day to day role consists of ensuring our network of installers in the Yorkshire area, all the jobs are running smoothly to ensure that they're all completed on time and to a high standard. And then to check in with customers to ensure they're happy with the install.

Starting as apprentice and now as a team leader, it's been a really enjoyable experience. And now moving into the green energy side. You feel like you’re making a difference to the environment.

Meet electrician Luke

Luke's apprenticeship led him to become a net zero delivery manager.

1 minute 30 second watch

View transcript

Hi my name’s Luke. I’m an electrician, and I've just developed into a net zero delivery manager for E.ON.

One thing that I've always been very proud about is doing my job is that it's something that I'm interested in. So having confidence, being a good team player as well, that's really, really important to be a good team player. If you're working alone, you can have these skills that you can find things and work things out, but having a team behind you that's there to support you is really good.

With the job that we do we’re in people's homes. So, you know, it's a… you have different personalities, different types of customers. So you'll have to adapt to, to those people and those people's personalities, especially when you’re working in their home, because it's their home at the end of the day.

I’ve worked on primarily EV charger installations so that would be on building sites and also in residential as well. Me being on site and being an electrician and going through all those little fault finding things because not everything goes perfectly. You know, you can plan it as best as you want, you can test and inspect it. But if you've got a a product that don’t quite play ball you're there using all the skills that you've got to go through, right, I’m going to test it, you know, and find out where that issue is, where that fault is.

You need to have sort of strong mathematical skills as well, because there'll be things that you have to do like cable calculations and working out cable routes and certain efficiencies and things like that. So good strong mathematical skills is another good one.

But, you know, don't be shy if you're somebody who sort of doesn't feel confident in a certain skill because as time goes on, you, you sort of grow into that role. And as long as you've got a nice support network around you, you know you can achieve what you want to achieve.

Example pay ranges in maintenance, service and repair

Below are some examples of the pay you could earn from working in different jobs in this sub-sector.

If you’d like to see more salary information for more jobs in this sub-sector, you can view all careers in maintenance, service and repair.

We estimate our salary ranges based on different sources. Find out more about the sources we use for salary information.

We'll put a salary as variable if reliable information is difficult to find. This might happen for jobs that are often freelance or have lots of self-employed workers.

Job role Starting pay Pay with experience
Aerospace engineer £30,000 £70,000
Aerospace engineering technician £27,000 £50,000
Agricultural engineering technician £24,000 £38,000
Auto electrician £23,000 £38,000
Blacksmith Variable Variable
Boat builder £24,000 £42,000
Clinical engineer £26,000 £75,000
Construction plant mechanic £26,000 £44,000
Cycle mechanic £23,000 £30,000
Diver Variable Variable
Domestic appliance service engineer £24,000 £30,000
Electrical engineer £27,000 £58,000
Electrical engineering technician £24,000 £48,000
Electrician £26,000 £45,000
Electricity distribution worker £23,000 £42,000
Electricity generation worker £24,000 £35,000
Electronics engineer £28,000 £60,000
Electronics engineering technician £26,000 £42,000
Engineering maintenance technician £27,000 £48,000
Fast fit technician £21,000 £30,000

Find out what type of career is right for you

If you're unsure about the type of careers that are right for you, you can take a skills assessment. There are no right or wrong answers when doing a skills assessment. It’s a way to understand yourself better and help you think about your next step.

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