The Diesel Technician Gap in 2026 by the Numbers

The Gap in One Line

TechForce Foundation's ninth annual supply and demand report, published in May 2026, puts diesel technician demand at 26,692 new entrants a year. Average supply is about 12,681. That leaves a gap of 14,011 techs a year, which TechForce counts as 52 percent unmet.

Demand is mostly replacement. The report cites BLS projections of 26,500 diesel tech openings a year through 2034, driven mainly by workers leaving the field.

Diesel Graduates Are Rising, Slowly

Diesel program completions reached 11,947 in the 2023 to 2024 school year, up 5.6 percent from the year before. Here is the recent run from the TechForce report, using federal IPEDS data from after a break in how programs are coded.

School year	Diesel completions
2019 to 2020	11,040
2020 to 2021	10,703
2021 to 2022	10,780
2022 to 2023	11,310
2023 to 2024	11,947

The schools turning out the most diesel grads were WyoTech in Wyoming with 473, Texas State Technical College with 321 and Universal Technical Institute of Arizona with 262. TechForce says Texas and Kentucky lead the states.

Even at the new high, graduates cover well under half of yearly demand. And not every graduate stays in the trade, which is where the ATRI numbers come in.

Source TechForce Foundation. Chart by Fleet Repaired.

What Diesel Techs Earn

TechForce reports a median diesel tech wage of $60,640, using BLS May 2024 data. The top 10 percent earn $85,980 or more. That median is 22 percent above the national median for all jobs of $49,500.

Sector	Median wage	Annual demand	Annual gap
Diesel	$60,640	26,692	14,011
Automotive	$49,670	70,865	20,780
Collision	$51,680	14,671	8,344

Source is the TechForce 2026 report PDF. Across all ten sectors it tracks, TechForce counts 241,842 technician openings a year against 101,743 graduates, so supply meets about 42 percent of demand.

What It Looks Like Inside a Shop

The American Transportation Research Institute surveyed 119 shops covering 3,140 locations and 18,696 diesel techs for its 2025 report on the shortage of qualified diesel technicians. Fleet Maintenance summarized the findings.

• More than half of shops were understaffed.
• The average vacancy rate was 19.3 percent, about 1 in 5 needed techs missing.
• Tech turnover averaged 16.5 percent in 2024, and was almost twice as high at understaffed shops.
• 44 percent of techs had thought about other jobs.
• 62 percent of first time techs had no formal training, and more than 1 in 3 had no shop experience.

Short staffing feeds on itself. The shops with the fewest techs lose them fastest.

Training Costs Real Hours

ATRI found shops spent an average of 357 hours training a first time tech with no formal training, and 172 hours training one who came out of a program. Shops paid $8,211 in wages while training brand new hires, and spent about $3,956 training formally trained techs.

Formal training improved skill in every core area ATRI measured by more than 100 percent, except soft skills, which improved 89 percent. A school grad is about half the training load of a walk in hire.

Why People Do Not Enter the Trade

Barrier	Share citing it
Cost of tools	29 percent
Lack of experience	28 percent
Pay not matching the work	16.1 percent
Mentoring shortfalls	10.8 percent
Restrictive hours	6.5 percent

From the ATRI survey as reported by Fleet Maintenance. ATRI also found 18 percent of trained graduates were not working in the field six months after finishing school.

Fixes That Match the Data

The numbers point at a short list.

1. Pay for tools. Tool cost is the top barrier at 29 percent. Fleet Maintenance cites Transervice Logistics offering tool allowances of $500 to $1,000.
2. Hire from programs. A trained grad takes about 172 training hours against 357 for an untrained hire. Call the diesel schools near you before you post a job.
3. Catch the 18 percent. Nearly 1 in 5 trained grads is not working in the field six months out. Ask local schools for that list.
4. Assign a mentor. Mentoring shortfalls stop 10.8 percent of people from entering. One senior tech per new hire costs hours, but turnover costs more.
5. Fix staffing first, then pay. Understaffed shops lose techs at almost twice the rate. Overtime to cover open bays drives the next person out.
6. Start new techs on high payoff skills. ATRI found modules like cab hardware and diesel engine cooling systems give big skill gains per hour and fit early onboarding.

Questions Shop Owners Ask

Do Graduates Stay in the Trade

Most do, but not all. ATRI found 18 percent of trained graduates were not working in the field in their first six months, and 17.5 percent were still out of it after one year, per Fleet Maintenance. That is a pool of trained people a shop can still reach.

How Much Do Techs Spend on Tools

The same article cites a 2023 WrenchWay survey in which 57 percent of technicians estimated they spend more than $60,000 on tools over a career. That is why tool cost leads the list of barriers.

Will Techs Work Weekends

WrenchWay found 22 percent of technicians do not mind working weekends, and 44 percent would for the right incentive. For a fleet shop that needs Saturday coverage, the incentive is cheaper than a truck sitting until Monday.

Is the Shortage Getting Better

Slowly. TechForce reports technician graduations across its ten sectors grew 7.6 percent in one year, and diesel completions grew 5.6 percent. Demand still runs about twice the supply of new diesel grads.

What This Means for Fleet Repair Wait Times

If your outside shop says a truck will sit for days, the shortage is a big reason. Shops missing 1 in 5 techs cannot open every bay. Fleets that book preventive maintenance ahead, send complete fault codes and approve estimates fast get their trucks back sooner. That is the part of the gap a fleet manager controls.