What Does a Maintenance Supervisor Do?
Almost every building has a repair list that is short on opening day and growing after that. These repairs cover the roofs, doors, and lights that make occupants' offices and hallways safer and more pleasant. Maintenance supervisors lead the crews that work through that list for campuses, hospitals, apartment owners and factories, often while still carrying a tool bag themselves.
Also known as: General Maintenance Assistant Supervisor, Maintenance Foreman, General Maintenance Supervisor, Structural Maintenance Foreman, Planned Maintenance Supervisor
Maintenance Supervisor Duties and Responsibilities
The primary responsibilities of a maintenance supervisor include:
- Hand out daily work orders to a crew of maintenance mechanics, carpenters and helpers.
- Inspect roofs, doors, plumbing fixtures and common areas on regular building rounds.
- Keep preventive maintenance on schedule for pumps, fans, doors, roofs and emergency generators.
- Hire and supervise contractors for roofing, elevator and specialty repairs, and check their work.
- Respond to after-hours emergencies such as floods, power loss and broken entry doors.
- Order tools, parts and supplies, and keep spending within the shop's annual budget.
- Run short safety briefings on lockout, ladders and fall protection, and check that crews follow them.
- Evaluate crew members, schedule their overtime and handle attendance and discipline issues.
- Plan summer projects such as painting, flooring and restroom renovations while buildings are quiet.
- Brief building managers on repair status, planned shutdowns and upcoming capital needs.
Required Skills and Qualifications
To succeed as a maintenance supervisor, you will need the following skills and qualifications:
- Broad trade knowledge across plumbing, electrical, carpentry and HVAC
- Crew leadership and scheduling
- CMMS work order systems
- Contractor oversight and basic estimating
- OSHA safety rules for maintenance work
- Budget tracking
- Steady judgment during building emergencies
- Plain, respectful communication with building occupants
Education and Training
Entry is open to people from any building trade, as employers are interested in supervisors who have fixed a little of everything, from leaking traps to stuck doors. A high school diploma is generally enough on paper. Promotion is often from within, and the chance to lead a crew grows with each trade you learn.
Salary and Job Outlook
Typical pay: $62,690 - $101,360 per year, with a median of $79,860.
The range covers the middle half of earners nationwide. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers.
BLS projects employment of first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers, the group maintenance supervisors belong to, to grow about 4 percent from 2025 to 2035. About 48,900 openings a year are expected across the group, according to the same projections. As long as there are roofs to patch and boilers to restart at midnight, buildings will need supervisors to make sure the work gets done. Mechanics who know several trades are usually the ones promoted.
Outlook source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2025 to 2035, First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers.