Surveying / Mapping Technician
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
A Surveying or Mapping Technician works with surveyors and cartographers to gather data and create maps. Visits sites and records survey measurements and descriptive data. Selects data needed to create maps, including photos, aerial photos and satellite information, and helps produce and update maps that show boundaries or topographical information.
Job Outlook
There were 647 Surveying / Mapping Technician job postings in North Carolina in the past year and 13151 in the United States.
In combination with other careers in the Surveying / Mapping Technician industry, which includes the Surveying / Mapping Technician career, the following graph shows the number of people employed for each year since 2015:
Salary
Many new Surveying / Mapping Technician jobs have salaries estimated to be in the following ranges, based on the requirements and responsibilities listed in job postings from the past year.
National
The average estimated salary in the United States for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $53,484.
State
The average estimated salary in North Carolina for this career, based on job postings in the past year, is $48,882.
Percentiles represent the percentage that is lower than the value. For example, 25% of estimated salaries for Surveying / Mapping Technician postings in the United States in the past year were lower than $40,996.
Education and Experience
Posted Surveying / Mapping Technician jobs typically require the following level of education. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.
| Education Level | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Associate's Degree | 16.87% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 23.89% |
| Master's Degree | 6.3% |
| Doctoral Degree | 1.38% |
| Other | 31.56% |
Posted Surveying / Mapping Technician jobs typically require the following number of years of experience. The numbers below are based on job postings in the United States from the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Years of Experience | Percentage |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 years | 54.29% |
| 3 to 5 years | 32.62% |
| 6 to 8 years | 7.75% |
| 9+ years | 5.35% |
Skills
Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Surveying / Mapping Technician positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed.
Baseline Skills
A skill that is required across a broad range of occupations, including this one.
- Communication (30.58%)
- Research (17.78%)
- Detail Oriented (14.78%)
- Operations (14.57%)
- Management (14.17%)
- Customer Service (12.9%)
- Writing (12.67%)
- Mathematics (11.48%)
- Self-Motivation (10.39%)
- Microsoft Office (10.39%)
Defining Skills
A core skill for this occupation, it occurs frequently in job postings.
- Surveying (50.9%)
- Legal Land Description (11.11%)
- Topography (21.6%)
- Topographic Surveying (15.07%)
Necessary Skills
A skill that is requested frequently in this occupation but isn’t specific to it.
- MicroStation (CAD Design Software) (14.09%)
- Construction (8.6%)
- Computer-Aided Design (24.19%)
- Civil Engineering (8.79%)
- AutoCAD Civil 3D (20.77%)
- Data Collection (12.29%)
- ArcGIS (GIS Software) (13.23%)
- Field Notes (10.99%)
- Field Surveys (15.47%)
- Global Positioning Systems (13.48%)
- Geographic Information Systems (21.81%)
- AutoCAD (19.26%)
- Project Management (17.57%)
Distinguishing Skills
A skill that may distinguish a subset of the occupation.
- Surveying Instruments (9.71%)
- Total Station (7.12%)
- Cartography (5.98%)
- Geospatial Analysis (7.93%)
- Survey Methodologies (1.76%)
Alternative Job Titles
Sometimes employers post jobs with Surveying / Mapping Technician skills but a different job title. Some common alternative job titles include:
- Survey Technician
- Survey CAD Technician
- Survey Field Technician
- Geospatial Analyst
- Mapping Specialist
- Land Survey Technician
- Director of Surveying
- Survey CADD Technician
- Land Surveyor
- Surveyor
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program.
- Civil Engineering Technician
- General Engineering Technician / Technologist
- Civil Engineer
- Civil Engineering Manager
- GIS Analyst
Common Employers
Here are the employers that have posted the most Surveying / Mapping Technician jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted.
United States
- Boston Scientific (346)
- GPAC (304)
- Leidos (289)
- Actalent (279)
- SAM (154)
- Westwood Professional Services (109)
- The Spear Group (89)
- Civil & Environmental Consultants (70)
- Sunrun (67)
- Octapharma (65)
North Carolina
- Actalent (22)
- Mckim & Creed (22)
- Southern Cross Corporation (21)
- The Spear Group (19)
- Timmons Group (18)
- Withersravenel (15)
- GPAC (13)
- Colliers Engineering & Design (11)
- WSP Global (11)
- Stewart (10)
NC State Programs Relevant to this Career
If you are interested in preparing for a career in this field, the following NC State Online and Distance Education programs offer a great place to start!
All wages, job posting statistics, employment trend projections, and information about skill desirability on this page represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is provided by and downloaded regularly from Lightcast. For more information about how Lightcast gathers data and what it represents, see Lightcast Data: Basic Overview on Lightcast's Knowledge Base website.