What Is an Auto Glass Technician? Windshield Installer Career Guide

O*NET keeps the task list for this occupation under automotive glass installers and repairers, SOC 49-3022 — a code of its own, separate from the automotive service technician occupation.

The titles workers report under the glass code include Auto Glass Technician and Windshield Repair Technician.

The federal task list is specific about the replacement steps.

• Prime scratches on the pinchweld, the seam the glass seats against.
• Apply a uniform bead of urethane around each pinchweld.
• Install the replacement glass.
• Allow the urethane ample time to cure, taking temperature and humidity into account.

The cure step comes with its own instruction: the task list explicitly says to take temperature and humidity into account when timing it.

Repair sits alongside replacement inside the same occupation — Windshield Repair Technician is one of the reported titles — so the job covers both full glass swaps and repair work on glass that does not need a full replacement.

The core tasks quoted here are glass tasks; the neighboring occupation, automotive service technicians and mechanics (SOC 49-3023), is one BLS covers separately.

The trade has dedicated employers of its own.

Safelite's careers site, for example, describes the company's work as auto glass repair, replacement and recalibration, and the company's own technician training setup appears later in this guide.

Because glass work has its own occupation code, the pay and jobs figures in this guide are BLS data published for exactly this code — no proxy occupation needed.

One skill set covers two settings: the fixed shop bay and the mobile service that comes to the customer.

Mobile service is not a side arrangement in this trade — BLS notes that automotive glass installers and repairers often travel to the customer's location to do the work.

The road version changes the logistics, not the chemistry: whether the install happens in a bay or a driveway, temperature and humidity still decide how long the urethane needs to cure.

The core steps do not split into a shop version and a mobile version, either: the same prime, bead, set and cure sequence from the task list applies in both, with the conditions around the vehicle doing the varying.

That is worth naming because it shapes the working day.

A mobile tech plans around weather the way a shop tech plans around bay space, and the same install can be a different job in January than in July.

On hours: in O*NET's survey, 66% of auto glass installers and repairers report 40-hour weeks, and 24% report more than 40.

Protective equipment is everyday practice: 98% of auto glass installers say they wear common protective equipment every day.

Windshield work has picked up a second skill: recalibration of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).

The evidence for that shows up in three places.

First, the employers: Safelite pays its technician trainees to learn installation, repair and safety-system recalibration, and its careers site describes the company's work as repair, replacement and recalibration.

Second, the industry's credential body: AGSC's certification list includes a Certified Glass Calibration Specialist, a dedicated credential sitting alongside its replacement and repair credentials.

Third, the data: BLS names more demand for calibrations and repairs of advanced safety systems as one of the drivers behind its outlook for automotive service technicians and mechanics, the broader technician occupation.

Read together, those show glass employers and the industry's credential body have already built paid training and a formal credential around calibration.

For someone entering the trade, that makes calibration a question to ask in interviews: which driver-assistance systems a shop recalibrates in-house, and who trains new techs to do it.

Calibration can also be a destination of its own for a tech who goes deep on it.

There is no national training length we can point to for this occupation, so the concrete examples on record are the ones to plan around: employer-run training and a registered apprenticeship title.

On the employer side, Safelite says its technician training takes anywhere from 12 to 15 weeks, and its technician trainees are paid to learn installation, repair and safety-system recalibration.

On the apprenticeship side, the Department of Labor's approved apprenticeship title for the trade is Glass Installer (Auto Serv).

Licensing is the question to settle with your state rather than with a general answer: BLS's profile notes that a few states require a license to perform automotive glass installation and repair, and it does not name them.

The current answer lives with your state's licensing authority.

Certification is a separate, industry-run layer.

The Auto Glass Safety Council (AGSC) requires all auto glass replacement technicians employed by its Registered Member Companies to be AGSC certified, and member companies get an independent third-party audit of compliance with the ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS standard.

The test fee is $69 for technicians at AGSC Registered Member Companies and $179 for everyone else, and the fee covers up to three attempts to pass; technicians at member companies hold the "certified" designation while others are "qualified."

The practical reading is straightforward: at a Registered Member Company, certification is a condition of holding the replacement job; the requirement as stated covers member companies' technicians, not the occupation at large.

AGSC's credential list includes Certified Replacement Technician, Certified Master Replacement Technician, Certified Glass Calibration Specialist, NWRD Repair Technician and Customer Service Representative.

The distinction that matters: AGSC certification is an industry credential, not a state license, and the two answer different questions.

A useful move when you talk to a hiring shop is to ask whether it is an AGSC Registered Member Company — because at member companies, AGSC certification is required for replacement technicians.

Already working in general repair and weighing the move?

The automotive technician career guide covers the neighboring repair trade.

BLS publishes an exact occupation code for this work, so the pay benchmark needs no proxy.

In May 2025, automotive glass installers and repairers (SOC 49-3022) earned a median of $47,630 a year, or $22.90 an hour.

The middle half earned between $40,110 and $59,550, and the mean was $50,430, or $24.25 an hour.

On an hourly basis, the middle half earned between $19.28 and $28.63, with the 10th percentile at $17.01 and the 90th at $33.97.

Those OEWS figures cover wage-and-salary jobs only — 20,310 of them nationally — and wages only: no benefits or tips detail.

For direction, BLS's Outlook Handbook — a different series from the pay survey — counted 22,600 jobs in 2025 and projects the occupation to grow 6%, to 23,900, by 2035.

The full tables behind these numbers live on the auto glass technician salary page.

Postings run under more than one name.

The occupation itself is automotive glass installers and repairers, and O*NET reports Auto Glass Technician and Windshield Repair Technician among the titles workers use — so titles built from those words, like windshield installer or automotive glass technician, point at the same trade.

Search across the variants so a posting under a different title still reaches you.

And since BLS notes the work often happens at the customer's location, a posting can be about a service area rather than a single storefront — worth checking when you compare openings.

When you are ready, browse auto glass technician jobs on AutoTechHires, and filter listings by pay and benefits.

Career information, not legal or licensing advice: whether a state licenses glass work varies, and BLS's profile does not name the states that do — confirm with your state's licensing authority, and confirm certification details with AGSC.