CAD technician salary in 2025 depends on which country prints the title. The United Kingdom has an official occupation with CAD in the name. The United States does not. Canada and Australia use technician and technologist language and then mix drafting with other technical work. Treating those medians as one converted global wage is how the comparisons go bad.
United Kingdom, where the title is real
The provisional Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for 2025 publishes SOC 3120, CAD, drawing and architectural technicians. For all employees, the median gross annual pay was £34,465 and the mean was £36,863. The lowest tenth was £23,817. The lower quartile was £29,265. The upper quartile was £42,230. The table lists about 41,000 jobs. The top tenth is suppressed.
Full time workers in the same occupation had a median of £35,221 and a mean of £37,639. The lowest tenth was £24,108. The lower quartile was £29,500. The upper quartile was £42,481. About 38,000 of the jobs were full time. Median hourly pay for full time workers was £17.83, and mean hourly pay was £18.56. The full time median was 4.2 percent higher than the previous figure in that table.
The national full time median in the same survey release was £39,039. CAD technicians sit below the middle of full time pay in Britain. They also sit below engineering technicians, whose full time median was £44,843, and well below mechanical engineers at £51,110. The fuller UK ladder is in UK CAD salary 2025.
These 2025 results are provisional and refer to the pay period that includes 30 April 2025. The coefficient of variation on the full time median is 5.6 percent, which is a usable official estimate, not a rough guess. It is still a sample.
United States, where you have to choose a code
American employers say CAD technician constantly. The wage tables say drafter, or they say engineering technologist and technician. Those are different jobs that a sloppy requisition will blend.
| U.S. group, May 2025 | Published figure |
|---|---|
| Drafters, median | $68,090 |
| Drafters, mean | $72,590 |
| Engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, median hourly | $35.32 |
| Engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, mean annual | $75,710 |
| Mechanical engineering technicians, mean annual | $76,380 |
| Civil engineering technicians, mean annual | $68,990 |
| Electrical and electronic engineering technicians, mean annual | $80,680 |
If the technician produces drawings, the drafter median is the match. The duties in the drafter handbook are the CAD job: software, dimensions, materials, models. Start at CAD drafter salary 2025 and then the specialty page.
If the technician supports tests, setups, or field work, and drawing is only part of the week, the technician rows are closer. The wage release does not hand you an annual median for the broad technician group. It hands you $35.32 an hour at the median and $75,710 as the mean annual wage, on about 390,860 jobs. Quoting $75,710 as typical pay uses the mean. The median hourly wage is the middle of the distribution.
The specialty means differ. Civil engineering technicians average less than mechanical technicians, who average less than electrical and electronic engineering technicians. Aerospace engineering and operations technicians, a small group of about 11,280, had a mean of $91,310 and a median hourly wage of $39.85. That aerospace mean is not a general CAD technician wage. It is a specific technical occupation in a high paying industry.
Canada and Australia use the technician word differently again
Job Bank Canada reports drafting technologists and technicians as one occupation, NOC 22212. The national median updated on 19 November 2025 was $31.79 an hour, for wages earned in 2023 to 2024. The published low was $21.50 and the published high was $48.38. At 2,080 hours the median is about $66,100, which is arithmetic, not a printed annual salary. Provincial medians from the Labour Force Survey are in Canada CAD salary 2025.
Australia goes the other way and splits civil from mechanical, while still mixing draftspersons and technicians inside each code. In May 2025 the full time median was $1,730 a week for civil engineering draftspersons and technicians, and $2,589 a week for the mechanical group. A CAD technician in a civil office and a CAD technician in a mechanical office are not on the same Australian number. See Australia CAD salary 2025.
What to do with a technician offer
Read the week, not the badge. Drawing sets, models, and sheets belong with drafters. Test support and site technical work belong with technicians. In Britain you can stay on the CAD technician code either way, because that is how the survey is built, and you should still notice that engineering technicians earn more at the median.
Do not average the U.S. drafter median with the UK full time median and call it the CAD technician salary. They are different currencies, different occupation boundaries, and different years of collection method. Each one is usable. The blend is not.
Sources
- ONS, ASHE Table 14, 2025 provisional. SOC 3120, gross annual pay. Full time and all employees.
- ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2025. Full time median of £39,039.
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Drafters. May 2025.
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Technician means and median hourly wages.
- Job Bank, drafting technologists and technicians.