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Equipment Maintenance

Cross-functional skill · O*NET work requirement

Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.

In the O*NET occupational database, Equipment Maintenance is a skill that work requires. O*NET rates how important it is (1–5) and what level of it a job needs (0–7) for every U.S. occupation. It is rated as important (3 or higher) in 101 of 894 occupations.

Breadth here means how widely O*NET rates this skill as important across occupations — not that it is rare, high-paying, or currently in employer demand.

Occupations that rely most on Equipment Maintenance

Ranked by O*NET importance to the occupation (1–5). Bars are sized against the 1–5 scale; the level column is what depth of the skill the job needs (0–7).

Occupation Importance Score Level
Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians 4.9 5.4
Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians 4.3 4.1
Elevator and Escalator Installers and Repairers 4.0 4.0
Industrial Machinery Mechanics 4.0 4.1
Medical Equipment Repairers 4.0 4.0
Mobile Heavy Equipment Mechanics, Except Engines 4.0 3.9
Signal and Track Switch Repairers 4.0 3.9
Wind Turbine Service Technicians 4.0 3.8
Avionics Technicians 3.9 4.0
Electric Motor, Power Tool, and Related Repairers 3.9 3.8
Hydroelectric Plant Technicians 3.9 3.9
Maintenance and Repair Workers, General 3.9 3.9
Motorboat Mechanics and Service Technicians 3.9 3.5
Outdoor Power Equipment and Other Small Engine Mechanics 3.9 3.6
Robotics Technicians 3.9 3.9
Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment 3.8 3.8
Maintenance Workers, Machinery 3.8 3.8
Millwrights 3.8 3.8
Rail Car Repairers 3.8 3.3
Ship Engineers 3.8 3.8
Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay 3.6 4.0
Home Appliance Repairers 3.6 3.1
Helpers--Extraction Workers 3.5 3.1
Motorcycle Mechanics 3.5 3.4
Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers, Except Line Installers 3.5 3.3
Audiovisual Equipment Installers and Repairers 3.4 3.0
Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics 3.4 3.5
Bicycle Repairers 3.4 2.9
Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists 3.4 3.4
Camera and Photographic Equipment Repairers 3.4 3.6
Coin, Vending, and Amusement Machine Servicers and Repairers 3.4 3.0
Continuous Mining Machine Operators 3.4 3.4
Motorboat Operators 3.4 3.0
Radio, Cellular, and Tower Equipment Installers and Repairers 3.4 2.9
Robotics Engineers 3.4 3.8
Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners 3.4 3.4
Biofuels Processing Technicians 3.3 3.4
Commercial Divers 3.3 3.0
Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairers 3.3 2.9
Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas 3.3 3.3

Showing the top 40 of 101 occupations where this is important.

How AI is used by roles that need Equipment Maintenance

This skill is not itself "being automated" — but we can look at the roles for which O*NET rates it important and ask how those people actually use AI. This rolls the Anthropic Economic Index per-role signal up across those roles (importance-weighted). 34.7% of the 101 roles where this is important carry observed AI-usage data (35 roles).

Across those roles, 29.0% of AI conversations are people working with AI and 39.8% hand a task to AI , with an average autonomy of 3.63 / 5.

Collaboration pattern Share What it means
directive 24.7% AI does it; you give the instruction
learning 22.5% you ask AI to explain or teach
feedback loop 15.1% AI does it, then adjusts from your feedback
task iteration 5.7% you and AI go back and forth
validation 0.8% you do it; AI checks your work

Roles behind this signal

The roles where this skill is most important and that also have the most AEI data. "Works with AI" is the role's share of conversations that augment rather than automate.

Occupation Importance Works with AI Autonomy
Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairers 3.3 33.4% 4.0/5
Robotics Engineers 3.4 42.0% 4.0/5
Industrial Machinery Mechanics 4.0 22.8% 4.0/5
Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders 3.0 27.2% 4.0/5
Robotics Technicians 3.9 42.3% 3.0/5
Electronic Home Entertainment Equipment Installers and Repairers 3.4 33.9% 3.5/5
Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers, Except Line Installers 3.5 23.4% 4.0/5
Electro-Mechanical Technicians 3.1 25.7% 4.0/5
Medical and Clinical Laboratory Technologists 3.0 42.9% 3.5/5
Electricians 3.0 34.3% 3.8/5
Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants 3.0 22.3% 3.0/5
Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic 3.1 18.6% 3.0/5

Source: Anthropic Economic Index (2026-01-15-v4-plus-2025-03-27-v2) over a sample of Claude.ai Free and Pro conversations — not all AI tools and not the whole workforce. Shares are of observed conversations, weighted by how important this skill is to each role; some conversations are left unclassified by Anthropic's taxonomy, so shares need not sum to 100.

Industries that concentrate this

Where Equipment Maintenance matters most across the economy. Employment reach is the share of an industry's workers in occupations that significantly rely on Equipment Maintenance (O*NET importance ≥ 3 of 5). Concentration compares that reach to the national average industry, so a value above 1× means the requirement is more pervasive here than across the economy as a whole.

Nationally, about 6.0% of workers are in occupations that significantly rely on Equipment Maintenance (measured across 67 industries).

Sectors with the most such workers

Sector Workers Employment reach
Manufacturing 1,779,730 13.9%
Construction 1,558,470 19.2%
Transportation and Warehousing 800,280 10.8%
Retail Trade 677,050 4.3%
Other Services (except Public Administration) 595,910 13.5%
Wholesale Trade 543,180 9.0%
Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services 435,300 4.8%
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing 399,720 16.9%
Health Care and Social Assistance 292,530 1.3%
Information 237,910 8.2%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 232,420 2.2%
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction 221,590 38.6%

Industries where it is most concentrated

Industry Level Concentration Employment reach
Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation Contractors National industry 9.3× 55.8%
Wind Electric Power Generation National industry 8.9× 53.4%
Fossil Fuel Electric Power Generation National industry 7.77× 46.6%
Power and Communication Line and Related Structures Construction National industry 6.63× 39.8%
Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction Sector 6.43× 38.6%
Utilities Sector 5.62× 33.7%
Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors National industry 4.62× 27.7%
Farm and Garden Machinery and Equipment Merchant Wholesalers National industry 4.57× 27.4%
Other Building Equipment Contractors National industry 4.43× 26.6%
Construction Sector 3.2× 19.2%
Machine Shops National industry 18.0%
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing Sector 2.82× 16.9%

Reach is a measure of how widespread a requirement is across an industry's workforce, not how intensively any individual uses it. Sector worker counts come from BLS OEWS employment; the significance threshold and tool use come from O*NET. Industries shown by concentration are filtered to a real worker base so a tiny specialty cannot top the list on rounding.

Capabilities required by many of the same occupations — a measure of which skills, knowledge and abilities tend to travel together, not a judgment of similarity.

Capability Type Shared occupations
Repairing Cross-functional skill 81
Troubleshooting Cross-functional skill 91
Equipment Selection Cross-functional skill 39
Operation and Control Cross-functional skill 82
Quality Control Analysis Cross-functional skill 87
Mechanical Knowledge 92
Operations Monitoring Cross-functional skill 97
Control Precision Ability 98
Multilimb Coordination Ability 79
Extent Flexibility Ability 55
Reaction Time Ability 53
Manual Dexterity Ability 98

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

Cite this page
Plain

Singulariki. "Equipment Maintenance." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27). Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/skills/equipment-maintenance

APA

Singulariki. (2026). Equipment Maintenance. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/skills/equipment-maintenance

BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-equipment-maintenance,
  title  = {Equipment Maintenance},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; Census NAICS 2022; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27). Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/skills/equipment-maintenance}
}

Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.