Technical support specialists are one of the least happy careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, technical support specialists rate their career happiness 2.8 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 15% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy technical support specialists are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Quality assurance analyst | 2.8 | $41k |
| Database administrator | 2.8 | $83k |
| Electronic equipment assembler | 2.8 | $28k |
| Quality control inspector | 2.8 | $48k |
| Technical support specialist | 2.8 | $49k |
| Switchboard operator | 2.7 | $31k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are technical support specialists happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do technical support specialists find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as technical support specialists?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are technical support specialist’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are technical support specialists making the best use of their abilities?
Are technical support specialists happy with their salary?
Technical support specialists rated their satisfaction with their salaries 3.0/5. Few are explicitly unhappy with their salaries, with most technical support specialists having generally positive views of their salary.
We asked technical support specialists how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3810 technical support specialists
10% of technical support specialists rated their compensation 5 stars
27% of technical support specialists rated their compensation 4 stars
29% of technical support specialists rated their compensation 3 stars
21% of technical support specialists rated their compensation 2 stars
14% of technical support specialists rated their compensation 1 stars
Do technical support specialists find their jobs meaningful?
On average, technical support specialists rate the meaningfulness of their work a 2.3/5. The majority of technical support specialists struggle to find any sort of meaning in their work, likely resulting in less satisfaction with the career overall.
We asked technical support specialists how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
2.3 out of 5 stars
3816 technical support specialists
6% of technical support specialists rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
12% of technical support specialists rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
22% of technical support specialists rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
29% of technical support specialists rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
31% of technical support specialists rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as technical support specialists?
Technical support specialists rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of technical support specialists find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked technical support specialists how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
4294 technical support specialists
22% of technical support specialists rated their career fit 5 stars
37% of technical support specialists rated their career fit 4 stars
25% of technical support specialists rated their career fit 3 stars
11% of technical support specialists rated their career fit 2 stars
4% of technical support specialists rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a technical support specialist’s work environment?
As a whole, technical support specialists rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.4/5. A solid majority of technical support specialists enjoy their work environment, probably contributing to overall higher satisfaction with working as a technical support specialist.
We asked technical support specialists how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.4 out of 5 stars
4291 technical support specialists
16% of technical support specialists rated their work environment 5 stars
34% of technical support specialists rated their work environment 4 stars
26% of technical support specialists rated their work environment 3 stars
16% of technical support specialists rated their work environment 2 stars
7% of technical support specialists rated their work environment 1 stars
Are technical support specialists making the best use of their abilities?
Former technical support specialists on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.8/5. Technical support specialists tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked technical support specialists how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
4288 technical support specialists
10% of technical support specialists rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
21% of technical support specialists rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of technical support specialists rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
27% of technical support specialists rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
16% of technical support specialists rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars