As the Director of Recruiting at Advanced Technology Services, Patrick Dean has his finger on the hottest, the highest paying, and the most in-demand jobs in factory maintenance.
With industrial giants like Caterpillar and Eaton on his client list, Dean's expertise ranges from maintenance management to repair and IT services throughout the Southeast and Midwest.
Recently, he gave some tips to IndustryWeek detailing the most in-demand jobs in the industry today, along with their current rates.
Maintenance Manager:
Salary Range: $80,000 to $100,000
"It's hard to find people who have the right mix of both technical and people management skills, Dean told IndustryWeek. "Where we find the most success is hiring them early in their careers and grooming them to become leaders."
Reliability Engineer:
Salary Range: $70,000 to $100,000
General mechanical, electrical, and industrial engineers aren't hard to find, but reliability engineers who know how to use predictive technology to make sure the machines stay up and running are more specialized and hence rarer. A few schools, like the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, offer a reliability engineering degree, but other engineers who qualify typically learn those skills on the job.
Maintenance Technicians/Specialists:
Wage Range: $28 to $35/hour range at the senior level, plus overtime
This is another highly specialized field without a lot of formal training out there. High-level maintenance technicians do CNC (computer numerical control) and PLC (programmable logic control) troubleshooting, as well as PLC programming.
Technical Leader, Regional Manager:
Salary Range: $80,000 to $110,000
"For us at ATS, it would be customer management skills as well, since we have customers we're interfacing with on a daily basis," Dean says. "For the most part, we try to fill those positions internally. It really becomes a challenge during times of significant growth, when we have to go externally [to fill] those positions."
Read the full story on IndustryWeek.