Audio Visual Technician: AV Installer and Integration Tech Careers

An audio visual technician — AV tech, AV installer, audio visual installation technician — installs, configures and services the sound, video and control systems inside commercial buildings: the video wall in a lobby, the projector and speakers in a classroom, the camera-and-microphone package that lets a boardroom join a video call, the digital signage in a hospital corridor.

The work sits inside the low-voltage family.

These are signal systems, not the building's power wiring.

On an integration project the work runs through a series of phases:

• Rough-in. Pulling signal cable through ceilings and walls while the building is open, often alongside the structured cabling and electrical crews.
• Installation. Mounting displays and projectors, building equipment racks, hanging speakers, cameras and touch panels, and terminating every cable.
• Configuration. Loading settings into audio DSPs and control processors, addressing devices, and connecting the system to the network it will run on.
• Commissioning. Verifying signal flow end to end, tuning audio, and testing every source against every destination.
• Handover and service. Showing users how the room works, then coming back when something stops working.

The settings vary more than the arc does: conference rooms and executive briefing centers, K-12 and university classrooms, courthouses and council chambers, hospitals, hotels, performing-arts venues and control rooms.

Employers include dedicated AV integration firms, electrical contractors with a low-voltage division, and in-house AV teams — the last section of this guide covers who hires.

On pay, the federal pay figure for this work comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025: Audiovisual Equipment Installers and Repairers (SOC 49-2097), the occupation that covers this work, had 19,780 jobs nationwide with a median of $25.29 per hour — $52,600 per year — a 10th percentile of $36,760 and a 90th percentile of $84,190.

OEWS reports the occupation as a whole; it does not separate integration from event work.

The state-level breakdown is on our AV technician salary page.

"AV technician" is used for two jobs that share equipment but not much else, and it is worth knowing which one a posting describes before you apply.

Integration (installed systems).

Integration technicians build permanent systems into buildings.

The work follows construction: bid, rough-in, fit-out, commissioning, then service calls afterward.

Employers include AV integrators, electrical contractors with a low-voltage division, and in-house AV departments.

The rhythm is project-based, the setting is a job site, and the skills skew toward cabling, racking, configuration and documentation.

Event and staging (live production).

Event technicians build temporary systems for shows — corporate events and product launches, conferences, concerts, hotel ballrooms, conventions.

The rhythm is load-in, show, load-out, often on evenings and weekends, and the skills skew toward live mixing, show networking and working fast against a door time.

Employers include staging and rental companies, hotels and venues, and production companies.

Neither is the junior version of the other; they are different careers that happen to share a rack.

Postings do not use the terms consistently, so read for the employer type and for the words install and commission versus load-in and show.

This guide is about the integration side — the side that sits inside the low-voltage trades.

Integration work runs across several system families.

A career can go deep on one of them or spread across several.

• Displays and projection. Large-format displays, video walls, projectors and screens — mounting, alignment, and the signal chain behind them.
• Conferencing and unified communications. The cameras, microphones, speakers and codecs that connect a room to the meeting platforms an organization has standardized on.
• Audio and DSP. Microphones, ceiling and loudspeaker systems, amplifiers and digital signal processors — configuring gain structure, equalization, echo cancellation and zone distribution so rooms sound right.
• Control systems. The touch panels and processors that tie a room together: one button starts the system, selects a source, sets volume and joins the call. Loading and maintaining control code is a specialization of its own.
• Digital signage and video distribution. Signage players and the matrix switching or AV-over-IP distribution that sends any source to any display across a building or campus.
• Recording, streaming and lecture capture. Capture appliances and streaming encoders for town halls, training, courtrooms and university courses.

These systems share buildings, pathways and networks with the other low-voltage trades — structured cabling, security cameras and access control.

AV sits inside that wider field, and the low voltage technician career guide covers it as a whole.

There is no single national answer: licensing for AV and other limited-energy work is set state by state, and in some places city or county rules sit on top of the state's.

Two states show how it can work.

Washington.

The Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) issues specialty electrician certificates, including a Limited energy system (06) specialty under WAC 296-46B-940.

The 06 scope covers signaling and power-limited circuits — the list includes telecommunications, intrusion alarms, energy management and controls, lighting controls, and amplified sound and public address — in all occupancies.

Amplified sound and public address are on that list, so part of the audio side of AV work falls under this specialty certificate there.

The same rule shows where the boundary sits: Washington's 06 specialty may repair or replace line-voltage connections inside an equipment cabinet, down to an internal power supply, but may not replace or modify the line-voltage circuit itself.

The signal system is limited-energy work; the circuits that power the building are electrical work.

Oregon.

Oregon licenses limited energy technicians in two classes under chapter 479 of its statutes: Class A, for all limited energy systems, and Class B, for all limited energy systems except protective signaling — the statute's examples of systems outside protective signaling include intercom and paging.

Intercom and paging work again lands inside a limited-energy licensing framework there.

Other states organize limited-energy work differently.

Licensing is set state by state and sometimes city by city, so the requirement that applies to a job depends on where the work happens.

In these two states the signal work is a defined scope with its own certificate or license class, and in both the rules attach to the jurisdiction, not to the job title.

There is more than one door in.

BLS lists the typical entry education for audiovisual equipment installers and repairers as a postsecondary nondegree award — a certificate or similar award that is not a degree — but the trade is also entered directly, and career changers arrive from adjacent fields.

• An entry-level installer or staging position. Learn termination, rack building and signal flow on the job while an employer trains you on its systems.
• A postsecondary AV or electronics program. Community college and trade school certificates cover electronics, cabling and systems fundamentals before your first job.
• A crossover from a related trade. Structured cabling, security and fire alarm technicians, bench technicians and IT support staff all work with cabling, devices and systems — skill sets that overlap with integration work.
• A union low-voltage apprenticeship. The electrical training ALLIANCE — the training joint program of the IBEW and NECA — lists VDV Installer Technicians among its apprenticeship areas: technicians who install telephone, computer network, video distribution, security and access control and other low-voltage systems.

Whichever door you use, the skills that compound are the same: clean cabling and termination, signal-flow literacy, IP networking (conferencing codecs, control processors and AV-over-IP distribution all connect to the building's network), configuration work, and documentation discipline.

The certifications section below covers the credential the industry association administers.

The trade's own industry certification is AVIXA's CTS, administered by AVIXA.

Four things are worth knowing exactly.

• No experience prerequisite. Per AVIXA's CTS handbook dated August 27, 2026, candidates must agree to the application terms and the CTS Code of Ethics and Conduct — no work experience and no training course is required, and AVIXA does not require any AVIXA or other training program to obtain the credential.
• The exam. 115 multiple-choice questions, 15 of them unscored pilot items, in 150 minutes, delivered by Pearson VUE. Scores are scaled so that the passing score is 350 on a 500 scale on every exam form.
• Fees. Effective January 1, 2025, CTS costs $390 for AVIXA members and $490 for non-members; retests and reinstatement are $150 and renewal is $175. The design and installation specialties, CTS-D and CTS-I, each cost $490 for members and $590 for non-members.
• Renewal. CTS is awarded for three years; renewal takes 30 AVIXA-approved renewal units (RUs) within the three years — 15 RUs for each additional specialty credential — or retaking the current exam.

Equipment manufacturers run certification tracks of their own — the display, DSP, control-system and conferencing-platform vendors whose gear you install.

Programs change often, so check a manufacturer's current course catalog before budgeting for one.

Keep the categories straight: a certification is a credential, not a license.

CTS is evidence that the holder passed AVIXA's exam; the licensing question in the section above is separate, and it is set by the state.

The employer side is varied, and worth sorting by type before you apply:

• AV integrators — firms whose business is designing, installing and servicing building AV systems; project and service work.
• Electrical contractors with a low-voltage division — AV bid alongside cabling, security and fire alarm scopes.
• In-house AV and IT teams — universities, hospitals, corporate campuses, courts and government buildings employ technicians to run their own rooms and events.
• Hotels, venues and staging companies — the event side: ballrooms, convention space, concert and corporate production.

Titles to watch for include audio visual technician, AV installer, integration technician, field engineer and programmer variants — AV programmer, control-system programmer.

The same title can lean installation at one company and programming at another.

Read for the employer type and the integration-versus-event distinction above before you apply.

On demand, BLS's Employment Projections for 2025–2035 expect the occupation to grow 4.8 percent, from 22,400 to 23,400 jobs, with about 2,200 openings per year — faster than the 3.5 percent projected for all occupations.

Current openings are on our AV technician jobs page.

This guide is career information for people in and entering the AV and low-voltage trades — it is not licensing, legal, code or safety advice. Licensing questions, including whether your state or city requires a license for the work, are set by your state's electrical licensing board or the agency that administers it; confirm with them before you apply for or accept work.