You become a maintenance specialist by completing a preparatory course for the professional examination. In seven modules, building services or production facilities are checked, maintained and repaired. You learn how to prevent wear and tear and how to maintain value and ensure the longest possible service life. If you meet the requirements for the maintenance specialist examination, you can take the professional examination following the preparatory course.

The professional examination for maintenance specialists with a federal certificate can be repeated up to twice if you fail. However, you do not have to repeat the entire final examination, but only the parts of the examination in which you were unsatisfactory (worse than a grade of 4.0).

In principle, you do not need a specific apprenticeship qualification for the professional examination for maintenance specialists. Access to the federal examination is possible in two ways: with and without a basic technical apprenticeship with an EFZ, i.e. a federal certificate of competence.

If you have completed a basic technical apprenticeship with an EFZ, you must provide proof of an additional two years of technical professional experience in the field of maintenance following your apprenticeship.

If you have another basic education, you have six years of technical work experience, two of which are in maintenance.

If you have a foreign qualification, SERI (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation) will decide on admission to the federal examination for maintenance specialists with a federal certificate.

Yes, you may be excluded from the professional examination for maintenance specialists if you do not comply with the rules. For example, if you knowingly and deliberately provide false information about the admission requirements or try to deceive the examination board in other ways.
Furthermore, you will be excluded from the final examination if, for example, you use unauthorized aids, grossly violate the examination discipline or try to deceive the experts.

The following modules are required for the maintenance specialist examination:

• System operation
• Maintenance
• Security
• Documentation
• Communication
• Logistics / Organization / Procurement / Disposal
• Cost and performance control

The further training course for maintenance specialists with a federal certificate is a part-time course, so it is possible for you to continue working. However, it is usually not possible to continue this in full, as the courses usually take place on a weekday. Occasionally, it is also possible to complete the further training course for maintenance specialists with a federal certificate in the evening and also on Saturdays. However, even with this option, it is not advisable to work full-time, as in addition to the classroom teaching, you should expect around eight hours of self-study per week, which is very intensive, especially during the exam preparation period. Please discuss the time options directly with the schools and think through how high your learning and workload can realistically be in order to remain productive.

The salary of a maintenance specialist is between 55,853 and 93,000 francs. The average gross annual salary is 75,140 francs. With 13 monthly salaries, this would correspond to a monthly salary of 5,780 francs after training as a maintenance specialist.

After training as a maintenance specialist, you can carry out the following activities:

• Play a central role in efficient and cost-optimized operating processes in the industrial and building services sectors
• Carry out maintenance work independently
• Monitoring and evaluation based on control plans
• Comply with laws and regulations in areas such as environmental protection, occupational safety and contract law
• Developing practical solutions for maintenance and repair
• call in the specialists in the decisive case and support them with the necessary information from the specialist area

Depending on the course model chosen, the maintenance specialist training with a federal certificate, including the professional examination, lasts between one and one and a half years.