Best Jobs For Former Mechanics [2022]

It’s tough to be a mechanic nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a mechanic isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become mechanics in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many mechanics no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former mechanics to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Here’s a quick look at the top ten most common jobs for former mechanics :

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a mechanic would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — as a list, they’re kind of boring as hell. They’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former mechanics to do.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Here are some of the most interesting jobs of former mechanics:

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

How We Determined the Most Common Jobs of Former MECHANICS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed mechanic under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a mechanic, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

That’s all for how we did it — below you’ll find the full ranked list of the most common jobs of former mechanics.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former MECHANICS

Rank	Job Title	%
1	Maintenance Technician	3.13%
2	Technician	2.18%
3	Diesel Mechanic	1.39%
4	Welder	1.39%
5	Service Technician	0.94%
6	Maintenance Supervisor	0.83%
7	Field Service Technician	0.82%
8	Lead Mechanic	0.82%
9	Truck Driver	0.82%
10	Supervisor	0.81%
11	Machine Operator	0.8%
12	Driver	0.79%
13	Heavy Equipment Mechanic	0.7%
14	Owner	0.68%
15	Forklift Operator	0.61%
16	Sheet Metal Mechanic	0.6%
17	Millwright	0.58%
18	Machinist	0.56%
19	Mechanical Technician	0.56%
20	Sales Associate	0.54%
21	Owner/operator	0.51%
22	Diesel Technician	0.5%
23	Electrician	0.5%
24	Shop Foreman	0.5%
25	Customer Service Representative	0.49%
26	Manager	0.49%
27	Assembler	0.47%
28	Lead Technician	0.46%
29	Material Handler	0.46%
30	Aircraft Mechanic	0.46%
31	Operator	0.45%
32	Equipment Operator	0.44%
33	Maintenance Manager	0.43%
34	Service Manager	0.42%
35	Heavy Equipment Operator	0.41%
36	Farm Hand	0.41%
37	Accounts Payable Clerk	0.37%
38	Automotive Technician	0.37%
39	Assistant Manager	0.36%
40	Security Officer	0.35%
41	Electronics Technician	0.35%
42	Operations Manager	0.34%
43	Team Leader	0.34%
44	Vehicle Mechanic	0.34%
45	Mobile Equipment Mechanic	0.34%
46	Engineer	0.33%
47	Warehouse Worker	0.33%
48	Foreman	0.33%
49	Delivery Driver	0.31%
50	Project Manager	0.31%
51	Sales Representative	0.31%
52	Fleet Mechanic	0.31%
53	Mechanical Assembler	0.3%
54	Production Supervisor	0.29%
55	Engineering Technician	0.28%
56	Field Mechanic	0.28%
57	Structures Mechanic	0.27%
58	Cook	0.26%
59	Painter	0.26%
60	Installer	0.25%
61	Warehouse Associate	0.25%
62	Equipment Mechanic	0.25%
63	Carpenter	0.25%
64	Quality Control Inspector	0.25%
65	Service Mechanic	0.25%
66	Auto Mechanic	0.24%
67	Store Manager	0.24%
68	Field Technician	0.23%
69	Specialist	0.23%
70	Internship	0.23%
71	Maintenance Engineer	0.22%
72	Computer Numerical Controller Machinist	0.21%
73	Shop Supervisor	0.2%
74	General Manager	0.2%
75	Shop Mechanic	0.2%
76	Mechanical Engineer	0.19%
77	Numerical Control Operator	0.19%
78	Shop Manager	0.19%
79	Inspector	0.19%
80	Avionics Technician	0.19%
81	Senior Mechanic	0.19%
82	Security Guard	0.19%
83	Automotive Mechanic	0.19%
84	Manufacturing Engineer	0.19%
85	Truck Mechanic	0.18%
86	Service Advisor	0.18%
87	Press Operator	0.18%
88	Hvac Technician	0.18%
89	Lube Technician	0.18%
90	Generator Mechanic	0.18%
91	Repair Technician	0.17%
92	Associate	0.17%
93	Operation Supervisor	0.17%
94	Installation Technician	0.17%
95	Handyman	0.17%
96	Floor Hand	0.17%
97	Senior Technologist	0.16%
98	Correction Officer	0.16%
99	Head Mechanic	0.16%
100	Helper	0.16%

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

Recent Job Searches

Explore All Jobs