Help desk and IT support remain the most common way into an IT career without a computer science degree: the work is learnable, employers hire people with certifications and no prior IT job, and it exposes you to every part of an organization's systems. The honest caveat is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment in these jobs to shrink slightly over the next decade, so treat support as a starting point you plan to move up from, not a place to stay still.
What entry-level IT support work looks like
The BLS groups these jobs under computer support specialists, which splits into two occupations:
- Computer user support specialists help people directly: diagnosing problems, guiding users through fixes, setting up equipment and installing software. This is what most job postings call help desk, service desk, desktop support or IT support technician.
- Computer network support specialists test, maintain and troubleshoot networks, often under the direction of systems administrators.
In practice, a first-year support job involves password resets and account lockouts, laptop setup and imaging, printer and Wi-Fi problems, email and Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace issues, VPN access, onboarding and offboarding staff, and escalating anything you cannot fix to a second-tier team. You work from a ticket queue, and your ticket notes are part of your performance.
Many tickets are repetitive. What separates people who move up quickly is what they do with that repetition: documenting fixes, scripting the boring parts, and asking the tier-two team how they solved the escalations.
Pay and job numbers from the BLS
According to the BLS, computer support specialists held about 903,100 jobs in 2025, most of them (about 750,600) in user support and about 152,500 in network support. Pay figures for May 2025:
| Occupation | Median annual wage | Lowest 10% earned less than | Highest 10% earned more than |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computer support specialists (overall) | $62,890 | ||
| Computer user support specialists | $61,860 | $40,980 | $100,540 |
| Computer network support specialists | $76,220 | $47,120 | $127,780 |
For comparison, the BLS reports a May 2025 median of $109,470 for all computer occupations and $50,980 for all occupations in the US. Support pays above the all-occupations median, but it sits well below the roles people typically move into. Our IT support specialist role page has more detail.
Entry pay depends heavily on location, industry and whether the role is tier one help desk or something more technical. Expect starting offers toward the lower end of the user support range, with network support and specialized desktop roles paying more.
The projected decline, explained
The BLS projects overall employment of computer support specialists to decline 3 percent from 2025 to 2035, a loss of about 24,300 jobs. The two parts move differently: user support is projected to decline 3 percent, while network support is projected to grow 1 percent.
The BLS gives two reasons:
- Automation of user support. Organizations continue to use automated tools such as chatbots for troubleshooting. That frees some specialists for harder problems, but fewer are expected to be needed overall.
- Outsourcing of network support. Smaller organizations with modest IT needs may find it cheaper to contract outside firms than to employ network support staff. The BLS also notes a shift toward workers with broader skills, including design, which favors roles like network architect.
Here is what that means for someone starting out. A 3 percent decline over ten years is a slow contraction, not a collapse, and the BLS still projects about 48,700 openings for computer support specialists each year on average, all of them from people leaving the occupation or retiring. Support is a high-turnover field precisely because people move up and out of it, which is why entry-level openings keep appearing.
The more practical conclusion is about which support work is at risk. Password resets and the simplest how-to questions are what self-service portals and chatbots handle first. The work that holds up is troubleshooting that requires judgment, hands-on hardware work, network problems and anything involving security or identity. Aim your learning there.
Realistic progression paths
The BLS notes that many computer support specialists advance into roles such as information security analyst, systems administrator and software developer, and some become managers of support teams. These are the most common directions:
| Path | Typical next roles | Skills to build while in support | BLS median pay, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Systems administration | Junior sysadmin, systems engineer | Windows Server and Active Directory, Linux, scripting (PowerShell, Bash), backups | $99,130 |
| Networking | Network technician, network engineer, later architect | Routing and switching, VLANs, firewalls, DNS and DHCP in depth | $134,050 (network architects) |
| Security | SOC analyst, security analyst | Identity and access management, log review, endpoint security, incident handling | $129,180 |
| Cloud and infrastructure | Cloud support, cloud or DevOps engineer | One major cloud platform, infrastructure as code, Linux, scripting | No separate BLS category |
| Management | Help desk lead, IT manager | Process, vendor management, reporting, people skills | $175,140 (IT managers) |
A few honest notes on these paths:
- Systems administration is the most natural next step, since you already work alongside sysadmins. Be aware that the BLS projects network and computer systems administrator employment to decline 4 percent from 2025 to 2035, because some of the work is shifting to DevOps-focused developers, some is being outsourced to network-as-a-service providers, and administrators are automating routine tasks. The takeaway is to pair sysadmin skills with automation and cloud experience. See our systems administrator page.
- Security has the strongest projected growth of these paths: the BLS projects information security analyst employment to grow 21 percent from 2025 to 2035. It is also competitive at entry level, and most employers want to see IT fundamentals first. Support experience, especially with accounts, permissions and phishing reports, is relevant.
- Networking rewards depth. The BLS lists five years or more of related experience as typical for network architects, often gained as network and computer systems administrators.
- Management is a later step. The BLS lists five years or more of related experience as typical for IT managers.
Most people who move up do it by taking on tier-two work, owning a project (a device rollout, a migration, a documentation overhaul) and getting one targeted certification for the next role.
Certifications that matter at entry level
The BLS notes that people can qualify for support jobs with a high school diploma plus relevant IT certifications, and that some employers require certifications in the products they use. At entry level, a small number of well-recognized certifications carry more weight than a long list.
- CompTIA A+ is the standard first certification for help desk roles. It requires two exams, Core 1 and Core 2, covering hardware, networking, operating systems and security basics.
- CompTIA Network+ is a common second step for anyone heading toward networking or systems work.
- CompTIA Security+ covers core security concepts and is a sensible target once you have some IT experience and want to move toward security work.
- Vendor fundamentals certifications from Microsoft, AWS or Google Cloud are useful if your target employers run those platforms, particularly for the cloud path.
Choose based on the job postings you want next, not on what is popular. Our certifications hub compares the main options. And remember that a certification gets you an interview; a home lab where you have actually built a domain controller, a small network or a cloud environment is what you talk about in it.
Your first 90 days in a support job
The first three months set your reputation. A workable plan:
Days 1 to 30: learn the environment. Learn the ticketing system, the escalation paths and who owns what. Read the existing knowledge base. Write down every fix you learn, including the ones that seem obvious. Ask questions in batches rather than interrupting constantly, and always say what you already tried.
Days 31 to 60: become reliable. Close tickets with clear notes that the next person could follow. Follow up with users before closing. Watch for repeat problems and note how often they occur. When you escalate a ticket, read how tier two resolved it.
Days 61 to 90: add something. Pick one improvement and deliver it: a knowledge base article set for the five most common tickets, a script that automates part of laptop setup, or a cleaner onboarding checklist. Tell your manager what it changed. Then ask directly what you would need to show to take on tier-two or project work, and which skills the team is short on.
Keep a running file of what you fix, build and improve, with rough numbers. In a year, that file becomes the experience section of your next resume (our tech resume guide shows how to turn it into strong bullets), and it is the strongest argument for your next role, whether that is inside the same company or elsewhere.