Help Desk Technician / Analyst
Career Area: Information Technology
Occupation Group: Network and Systems Support
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Help Desk Technician / Analyst earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $42,823
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $45,363
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Provides technical support to computer users. Handles customer inquiries and works to resolve technical issues with computer hardware, software or networks. Provides customer support by phone, email, live chat or with screen sharing. May refer customers with complex system or application problems for more advanced technical support. Tracks help requests using a ticketing system.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Location | Growth | |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 1990 | +11.9% |
| Nationwide | 56812 | +10.6% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Help Desk Technician / Analyst is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.
- Microsoft Windows: Microsoft Windows, or simply Windows, is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Help Desk Support: A help desk is a resource intended to provide the customer or end user with information and support related to a company's or institution's products and services.
- Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
- Technical Support: Technical support (often shortened to tech support) refers to a plethora of services by which enterprises provide assistance to users of technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other informatic, electronic or mechanical goods.
- Printers: In computing, a printer is a peripheral which makes a persistent human-readable representation of graphics or text on paper or similar physical media.
- Microsoft Active Directory: Working experience of Microsoft Active Directory, which is a directory service that Microsoft developed for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of processes and services and is an umbrella title for a broad range of directory-based identity-related services. Active Directory stores information about objects on the network and makes this information easy for administrators and users to find and use. Active Directory uses a structured data store as the basis for a logical, hierarchical organization of directory information. A set of rules, the schema, that defines the classes of objects and attributes contained in the directory, the constraints and limits on instances of these objects, and the format of their names.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Help Desk Technician / Analyst that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Software Support: After-sales service provided by a software publisher or vendor in solving software conflicts and usability problems, and in supplying updates and patches for bugs and security holes in the program.
- Wide Area Network (WAN): A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance.
- Voice over IP (VoIP): Voice over Internet Protocol (also voice over IP, VoIP or IP telephony) is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet.
- Windows Server: Windows Server is a brand name for a group of server operating systems released by Microsoft.
- Microsoft Exchange: Microsoft Exchange A popular e-mail messaging system from Microsoft that runs on Windows servers. The server side is Microsoft Exchange Server and the featured client program is Microsoft Outlook, which includes contacts and calendaring. Prior to Outlook, which was introduced with Office 97, the Windows client was Exchange Client.
Salary Boosting Skills
A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:
- System Administration: A system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems; especially multi-user computers, such as servers.
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 63% |
| 3 to 5 years | 32% |
| 6 to 8 years | 3% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- Help Desk Technician
- Field Service Technician
- Help Desk Analyst
- Help Desk Analyst I
- Service Desk Analyst
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