Frame Technician Career Guide: Structural Collision Repair

A frame technician is the collision repair specialist who works on the part of the vehicle everything else attaches to.

In a body shop the title means collision structural repair, not the structural engineering discipline that shares the phrase.

The occupation is reported under BLS's automotive body and related repairers group, and O*NET's sample of reported titles for that group includes Body Technician, Collision Repair Technician and Frame Man.

I-CAR, a neutral collision-industry training body, lists Structural Technician as a learning path on its technician page and as one of the nine individual roles its Platinum recognition covers.

BLS's duty list for body repairers carries the frame tech's core work inside it: review damage reports, prepare cost estimates and plan work; inspect for structural damage; remove damaged parts; realign frames and chassis; and fit, attach and weld replacement parts.

After a major collision a car's underlying frame can be weakened, and BLS describes body repairers as the workers who restore the structural integrity of car frames to manufacturer specifications.

Some body repairers complete whole jobs alone; especially in large shops, the work runs as an assembly-line team where each person handles a specialized task, with painting generally left to painting and coating workers.

The frame bay is one station on that line.

The trade splits its work the way ASE's collision exams do: non-structural versus structural.

The B3 Non-Structural Analysis and Damage Repair test covers preparation, outer body panel repairs, replacements and adjustments, metal finishing and body filling, glass and hardware, welding, cutting and removal, and plastic repair.

The B4 Structural Analysis and Damage Repair test covers frame inspection and repair, unibody and unitized structure, stationary glass, and welding, cutting and joining.

Those two content lists are the boundary in credential form.

Unibody construction is the reason the industry created I-CAR, founded in 1979 as a neutral industry body.

I-CAR trains Structural Technician and Non-Structural Technician as separate Platinum roles, and its shop-level Gold Class recognition requires role representatives in four jobs — estimator, refinish, structural and non-structural — each at ProLevel 2 or higher.

GM's Service Technical College program for dealer collision shops is where structural becomes the deeper requirement: the Structural representative completes ProLevel 1, 2 and 3, while the Non-Structural representative needs at least ProLevel 1.

BLS's tool list for body repairers reads like a frame bay inventory: pneumatic tools, plasma cutters, heavy-duty hydraulic jacks and common hand tools such as files, pliers, wrenches, hammers and screwdrivers.

Measuring gear comes in two families, the way I-CAR draws the line: point-to-point tools such as tape measures and tram gauges, and computerized three-dimensional measuring systems.

Welding gear is the heavy side of the bay, and I-CAR's own hands-on course requirements put numbers on it.

The STRSW course runs on a squeeze-type resistance spot welder producing at least 10,000 amps with at least 790 pounds of clamping force, one welder per six participants.

The steel GMA (MIG) course requires a welder producing at least 140 amps, one for every three participants, with NIOSH-approved welding respirators.

The aluminum certification runs on a pulse-synergic MIG welder with 100 percent argon shielding gas and a shade 11 or greater helmet.

Those lists describe what the training events run on, not vehicle-maker mandates — the equipment a shop's frame bay actually carries follows each OEM's repair procedures.

The entry route runs through body repair — Frame Man sits in the same O*NET reported-titles list as Body Technician and Collision Repair Technician.

BLS says new body repairers usually start by helping an experienced repairer with basic tasks, that some are trained in as little as 1 year, and that they generally need 2 or 3 years of hands-on training to become fully independent.

School runs alongside or ahead of that shop time.

Trade and technical school collision programs typically award certificates after 6 months to 1 year, some community colleges offer 2-year collision programs, and the programs combine hands-on practice with technical instruction that usually covers electronics, repair cost estimation and welding.

Credentials stack on top of experience rather than replacing it.

BLS says certification for body repairers is not required but is recommended and can be required for advancement beyond entry level, and that many vehicle and paint manufacturers run product certification programs.

ASE certification is voluntary — its own guide calls it that — and earning it means a passed test plus qualifying full-time hands-on work experience, or a combination of formal training and experience, with the B2-B5 collision tests needing 2 years.

Completing an ASE-accredited collision program earns 6 months toward the 1-year experience requirement and 1 year toward the 2- or 3-year requirement, and holding I-CAR Platinum satisfies ASE's 2-year Repair Technician or Collision Damage Estimator requirement for the roles in which the technician holds Platinum.

On the structural side specifically, every Structural Technician at an I-CAR Gold Class shop must be welding-trained, and I-CAR says many OEM-certified and insurance networks require its welding certification.

Frame technicians report through the body-repairer occupation, SOC 49-3021 — the group whose reported titles include Frame Man — and that group's May 2025 median wage was $54,890, with the lowest 10 percent under $36,910 and the highest 10 percent above $87,940.

Where the work sits moves the number a little: the May 2025 median was $55,920 in automotive body, paint, interior and glass repair shops, $52,040 at automobile dealers and $50,450 in mechanical and electrical repair shops.

The body tech salary page carries the full labeled table for the group.

Pay method matters in this trade.

BLS describes the majority of repair shops and auto dealers as paying automotive body and glass repairers on an incentive basis — a set amount for completing tasks, on top of a guaranteed base salary.

Earnings follow the work assigned and the speed of the work.

On outlook, BLS projects employment of automotive body and glass repairers to grow 4 percent from 2025 to 2035, about as fast as average, with about 13,900 openings per year — a combined body-and-glass figure.

BLS says more automotive body workers are projected to be needed because repair work takes more time to work around the increasing number of cameras and sensors on new vehicles.

TechForce Foundation's 2026 supply-and-demand report puts collision repair demand at 14,671 new entrants per year against supply covering 42 percent of it — a collision-wide estimate, not a structural-only one.

The physical reality is part of the decision: BLS calls the work physically demanding, with body repairers sometimes in awkward and cramped positions, indoors in shops that are often noisy though, in most shops, well ventilated.

BLS also says most automotive body and glass repairers work full time, and overtime — including evenings and weekends — is common when shops have a backlog.

By BLS's 2025 count, 60 percent of automotive body and related repairers worked in automotive body, paint, interior and glass repair shops, 16 percent at automobile dealers, 8 percent were self-employed and 6 percent worked in mechanical and electrical repair shops.

That is the occupation's employment spread — structural bays ride inside it wherever collision work is repaired.

Vehicle makers' collision network programs carry requirements that reach structural work.

Ford's Certified Collision Network requires facilities to obtain and maintain I-CAR Gold Class.

GM's Collision Repair Network takes Gold Class as the base for all repair facilities and adds specialty requirements on top, including restricted structural parts for Corvette C8 and Cadillac CT6 work under its ICE Specialty.

I-CAR's page for Tesla's program says each Tesla Approved Collision Center doing structural repairs must have two technicians certified in each required I-CAR welding course — Aluminum GMA (MIG) Welding and Steel GMA Welding — with those certifications renewed every three years.

On this board, structural technician is an alias for the same listings — the structural-technician job search redirects to the frame technician listings.

Browse current frame technician jobs at collision centers, dealer body shops and multi-shop operators.

Diagnosis starts before the car is on the bench: BLS lists reviewing damage reports, preparing cost estimates and planning the work among body repairers' typical duties, with inspecting for structural damage called out alongside them.

Once the structure is exposed, the work follows the vehicle maker's procedures.

GM's part-specific collision procedures state the use of three-dimensional measuring equipment, and FCA requires structural distortion to be identified and corrected with straightening equipment and a three-dimensional measuring system.

I-CAR's contrast between point-to-point tools and computerized 3D systems is the practical difference: two points checked against each other, versus the whole body measured in space.

Pulling starts with access.

O*NET lists removing upholstery, accessories, electrical window-and-seat-operating equipment and trim to gain access to vehicle bodies and fenders among the occupation's core tasks — the disassembly that exposes the structure before anything is pulled.

The pull itself is BLS's realign-frames-and-chassis duty, done with the heavy-duty hydraulic jacks BLS lists among body repairers' tools and the straightening equipment FCA's procedure names, while the measuring system confirms the structure is coming back to manufacturer specifications.

FCA's requirement pairs the two explicitly: structural distortion is corrected with straightening equipment and a three-dimensional measuring system together.

Where pulling cannot recover the structure, it gets cut out and replaced.

O*NET lists the sequence among core tasks: removing damaged sections with metal-cutting guns, air grinders and wrenches; installing replacement parts with wrenches or welding equipment; and fitting and welding replacement parts before grinding the welds smooth.

The joining method follows the vehicle maker.

I-CAR says most vehicle makers prefer squeeze-type resistance spot welding (STRSW) for panel attachment because of high-strength and ultra-high-strength steels, and that fewer OEMs now allow conventional GMA (MIG) welding for that attachment work.

Rivet bonding is the aluminum answer: I-CAR calls it standard practice on aluminum-intensive vehicles such as the 2015 Ford F-150, Jaguar XJ and Audi A8, and notes BMW requires it to replace many factory spot-welded panels even on steel-body vehicles.

Sequence matters around the welds: I-CAR's corrosion-protection guidance applies adhesives before welding when parts are adhesively bonded, puts foam fillers in normally before refinish, and normally leaves cavity wax until after refinish and before trim goes back on.

The credential tracks the cut: Steel Sectioning is one of I-CAR's three welding certifications, alongside Steel GMA (MIG) Welding and Aluminum GMA (MIG) Welding.

Welding is the requirement that follows the structural role through I-CAR's Gold Class standard and the vehicle-maker and insurance networks layered on it.

I-CAR's Gold Class standard says every Structural Technician must be trained on welding; welding training is optional for Non-Structural Technicians.

Welding certification may be renewed every three years, with a recertification course that lets a technician who passes the skills test skip the full training course.

I-CAR says many OEM-certified and insurance networks require its welding certification.

The verification gets vehicle-specific fast: Honda and Acura require a test weld and a passing destructive test for each unique squeeze-type resistance spot weld before welding on the vehicle, per the procedure in the vehicle-specific body repair manual.

The hazards around the welds are documented too.

I-CAR says foam fillers, seam sealers and cavity wax can pose a fire hazard, should be located — body repair manuals show the hidden locations — and removed before cutting or grinding, and that drilling holes to gain access for corrosion protection is not recommended.

I-CAR also reports a rocker panel that exploded when corrosion-protection propellant fumes ignited during welding.

Inspection closes the job.

BLS lists reviewing damage reports and planning work among the occupation's duties.

O*NET lists inspecting repaired vehicles for proper functioning, completion of work, dimensional accuracy and overall paint appearance as core tasks, alongside test-driving vehicles to ensure proper alignment and handling.

Career information, not licensing, legal, tax, insurance or safety advice: the training and certification requirements described here are ASE's, I-CAR's and the vehicle makers' — confirm the current requirements with the body that issues them before you plan training or take on a job task.