Maintenance workers are below average when it comes to happiness.
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, maintenance workers rate their career happiness 2.9 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 24% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy maintenance workers 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Rotary drill operator | 2.9 | $63k |
| Stonemason | 2.9 | $32k |
| Boilermaker | 2.9 | $70k |
| Ironworker | 2.9 | $44k |
| Quarry rock splitter | 2.9 | $47k |
| Maintenance worker | 2.9 | $23k |
| Water treatment plant operator | 2.9 | $56k |
| Cement mason | 2.9 | $18k |
| Surveyor | 2.8 | $46k |
| Marine electrician | 2.8 | $73k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are maintenance workers happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do maintenance workers find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as maintenance workers?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are maintenance worker’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are maintenance workers making the best use of their abilities?
Are maintenance workers happy with their salary?
Maintenance workers rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.9/5. Maintenance workers tend to be quite unhappy with their salary, with very few reporting satisfaction with their pay.
We asked maintenance workers how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
2.9 out of 5 stars
217 maintenance workers
6% of maintenance workers rated their compensation 5 stars
28% of maintenance workers rated their compensation 4 stars
32% of maintenance workers rated their compensation 3 stars
19% of maintenance workers rated their compensation 2 stars
15% of maintenance workers rated their compensation 1 stars
Do maintenance workers find their jobs meaningful?
On average, maintenance workers rate the meaningfulness of their work a 2.5/5. The majority of maintenance workers struggle to find any sort of meaning in their work, likely resulting in less satisfaction with the career overall.
We asked maintenance workers how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
2.5 out of 5 stars
217 maintenance workers
6% of maintenance workers rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
15% of maintenance workers rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
25% of maintenance workers rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
26% of maintenance workers rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
28% of maintenance workers rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as maintenance workers?
Maintenance workers rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.6/5. The majority of maintenance workers find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked maintenance workers how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.6 out of 5 stars
222 maintenance workers
18% of maintenance workers rated their career fit 5 stars
40% of maintenance workers rated their career fit 4 stars
27% of maintenance workers rated their career fit 3 stars
13% of maintenance workers rated their career fit 2 stars
2% of maintenance workers rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a maintenance worker’s work environment?
As a whole, maintenance workers rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.3/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked maintenance workers how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.3 out of 5 stars
225 maintenance workers
11% of maintenance workers rated their work environment 5 stars
36% of maintenance workers rated their work environment 4 stars
30% of maintenance workers rated their work environment 3 stars
16% of maintenance workers rated their work environment 2 stars
7% of maintenance workers rated their work environment 1 stars
Are maintenance workers making the best use of their abilities?
Former maintenance workers on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.8/5. Maintenance workers tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked maintenance workers how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
224 maintenance workers
8% of maintenance workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
25% of maintenance workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
25% of maintenance workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
25% of maintenance workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
17% of maintenance workers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars