Production Technician and Assembler
SOC 51-2092
Assemblers and production workers build what a factory makes. It is one of the largest groups of manufacturing jobs in the country, and the usual way into the industry. ⚠ No credential is required to start. Florida's 150- to 500-hour courses help you get hired at better plants, earn a soldering certification, and start the climb to technician, inspector or supervisor.
Manufacturing and Mechatronics Technician
SOC 17-3024
Manufacturing technicians keep automated production running — controls, robotics, instrumentation and the mechanical systems underneath — by following a fault across electrical, mechanical and software boundaries. ⚠ Florida's entry certificate is 300 hours, the shortest on this site, and the training travels much further than the job title suggests.
Electronics Engineering Technician
SOC 17-3023
Electronics engineering technicians build, test, maintain and troubleshoot electronic systems beside engineers — circuits, instrumentation, controllers and the equipment they live in. ⚠ A two-year degree with a $78,190 median: the strongest wage-to-training ratio on this site.
Semiconductor Technician
SOC 51-9141
Semiconductor technicians make microchips: they work in cleanrooms, running and maintaining the tools that pattern, etch, deposit and package silicon. ⚠ A small occupation growing much faster than average, and Florida pays it almost $11,000 above the national median. Florida's programmes are new: an 18-credit cleanroom certificate that stacks into a calculus-based A.S.
Mechanical Engineering Technician
SOC 17-3027
Mechanical engineering technicians test, build and improve mechanical systems beside engineers — instrumenting a design, finding out whether it behaves as claimed, and writing down what happened. ⚠ Median $74,510, but read the education data: more than a third of employers in this occupation ask for a bachelor's.
Industrial Engineering Technician
SOC 17-3026
Industrial engineering technicians make production work better — process and layout, quality data, lean methods and scheduling — beside industrial engineers rather than on the machines. ⚠ Median $66,120, and the highest bachelor's expectation of any technician occupation here: 53%. ⚠ It also covers quality-control inspection — a far larger occupation that Florida barely teaches as a programme.
Civil Engineering Technician
SOC 17-3022
Civil engineering technicians support design and construction — drawings and quantities, surveying, materials testing and the site inspection that catches what was built wrong. ⚠ 64,900 employed nationally, and the Florida programme that carries its name is the smallest on this site: eight institutions, 16 credentials.
Manufacturing Production Supervisor
SOC 51-1011
First-line supervisors run a production crew — scheduling, training, safety, quality and the paperwork behind all of it. ⚠ It is the largest source of annual openings on this site (67,700 a year) at a median of $74,450, and it has no degree behind it: nearly two thirds of entrants report no degree at all. This page is about how the promotion is actually reached.
HVAC Technician
SOC 49-9021
HVAC technicians install and repair heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration — and in Florida that is year-round work on the systems that make buildings usable. ⚠ It pays the best median of the clock-hour trades on this site ($61,010) and is the only one federal projections call much faster than average.
⚠⚠ Heating/Air Conditioning/Refrigeration Engineering Technology — and the evidence says this is the programme's real home: 45 Florida public institutions and 891 credentials in 2023, against 31 and 111 under 47.02. Florida's own frameworks are filed here.
Plumber, Pipefitter and Sprinkler Fitter
SOC 47-2152
⚠⚠ A paid-apprenticeship trade: BLS describes 4 to 5 years of apprenticeship with about 2,000 paid hours a year, on a high school diploma. ⚠⚠⚠ Florida pays well below the national figure ($52,910 median against $63,800), and the gap widens to $34,810 at the 90th percentile. Florida's journeyman licence is issued locally but recognised in every county and city, and the contractor licence is the step that changes income.
⚠ HVAC/R Engineering Technology — where Florida files HVAC; shares piping skills and the same journeyman reciprocity provision as plumbing (s. 489.1455).
Logistics and Supply Chain Analyst
SOC 13-1081
Logisticians decide where goods sit, how they move and what it costs — purchasing, inventory, transportation and network design. ⚠ It is the fastest-growing and best-paid occupation in this cluster (a median of $82,320, growth of 18% on the latest federal projection), and there is no single required major: 75% hold a bachelor's, and business, supply chain and engineering all lead here. So does the military.
Industrial production technologies — the plant-floor entry to the same material (production and inventory control, scheduling, lean). ⚠ Filed here because manufacturers routinely fill supply chain roles from inside the plant, not because the programme is a logistics degree; it awards 89 short certificates a year across 19 Florida institutions.
Construction Manager
SOC 11-9021
Construction managers plan, price, schedule and deliver building projects — coordinating trades, controlling cost, enforcing code and safety, and answering for the programme. ⚠ A median of $114,990 with 9% growth, on a route with no licence gate at entry — compare architecture at $99,280 after an accredited degree, 3,740 supervised hours and a six-division exam. ⚠⚠⚠ And the finding that matters most in Florida: a construction degree is worth THREE YEARS of site experience toward a contractor licence under s. 489.111. This page covers three related roles, and two routes that look alike and end in different places.
Construction engineering technology — ⚠ where Florida ACTUALLY files construction management: 16 public institutions and 521 credentials, against ZERO Florida public institutions on the federal Construction Management code that this path is nominally anchored to.