Throughline

Skilled trades

Automotive Service Technician in San Diego

22 postings read · sampled 2026-09-01 · source ats

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 22 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

None. Across 22 postings, no certification or licence was named often enough to call it a requirement. For this role in this market, employers are hiring on demonstrated work rather than credentials — which means money spent on a certificate here is unlikely to be what gets you the interview.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

  • Post-secondary certificate50%
  • High school diploma or equivalent43%
  • Some college, no degree6%

Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed. Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

O*NET 49-3023.00 · pulled 2026-09-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

This sample is small enough that one posting moves any percentage by more than a couple of points, so we are not calling anything low-signal here. Read the numbers above as a direction, not a measurement.

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$38,830
10th percentile
$64,320
median
$86,660
90th percentile

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

Lucid Motors · 1X · 360 IT Professionals · Convene · Formic · J&J Snack Foods · Murgado Automotive Group · Path Robotics · Pearce Services · SkillSource · Stem Xpert

The same role elsewhere

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