A new report from a U.S. non-profit supporting students pursuing careers as technicians has found there is a 57% shortfall of collision technicians in the U.S.
According to the TechForce Foundation, collision repair schools and training programs are not producing enough new technicians to meet projected demand. The foundation’s 2026 Technician Workforce Report projects the collision repair sector will need 14,671 new technicians each year from 2025 to 2029. Schools and training programs are expected to produce 6,327 per year, leaving an annual gap of 8,344 technicians.
Over five years, the collision repair sector will need 73,354 new technicians, according to the report.
There was one positive sign within the report. Collision repair programs had 5,462 graduates in the 2023-24 academic year, up 14.2% from the year before. That was the strongest growth among the 10 technician sectors covered in the report.
Texas accounted for 11.2% of all collision repair completions, the highest share of any state. The report lists Fayetteville Technical Community College in North Carolina as the top collision repair program by completions, with 177. WyoTech in Wyoming followed with 145 and Dallas College in Texas had 133.
Collision repair technicians had a median wage of US$51,680, while the top 10% earned more than US$87,030. The report also notes that collision repair work increasingly requires “advanced skills in materials science, electronic calibration, and ADAS sensor alignment.”
The shortage extends beyond collision repair. Across the 10 technician sectors studied, the report projects 241,842 annual technician openings and 101,743 annual completions. That means the broader technician training pipeline is filling 42.1% of demand.
The report puts the annual shortfall across those sectors at 140,099 technicians and estimates US$7.42 billion in annual wage-based economic output is lost to unfilled technician jobs, or US$37.09 billion over five years.
Turnover remains a major issue. Across the 10 sectors, employers hired 1.18 million technicians in 2025 and lost 1.14 million. Collision had the highest turnover rate in the report, at 60.7%.
“The pendulum has swung in America,” said Jennifer Maher, CEO of TechForce Foundation (pictured). “Society now recognizes 4-year universities aren’t the only road to success and that we need skilled professionals to keep the world moving.”
Maher said more than four million Americans aged 16 to 24 are neither in school nor working.
“They are hands-on, kinetic learners who thrive in technical education classes,” Maher said. “They’re curious problem-solvers and love making and fixing things. but instead they now have no credentials, no path. The technician career was built for exactly how they are wired. Let’s guide these people into highly-skilled, in-demand, sustainable careers.”
The report uses U.S. Department of Education data to measure the supply of new technicians and Bureau of Labor Statistics data to measure demand.
The education data does not include every path into the trade. It does not capture high school career and technical education students who go straight into the workforce, military-trained technicians, employer apprenticeship graduates or informal on-the-job entrants.
