Pest Control Technician Job Description: Template, Duties, Licensing & Pay (2026)

A free pest control technician job description template you can copy, plus the federal certification rules that decide what an unlicensed new hire may legally do while they work towards a licence. The occupation pays a median of $45,250 and turns over about 13,700 openings a year against a base of 108,700 people — roughly one opening for every eight technicians, every year. Most adverts for this role either demand a licence the candidate cannot get before starting, or say nothing about licensing at all. Both cost you hires.

What a pest control technician does

A pest control technician inspects properties, identifies infestations, and applies pesticides and mechanical controls to eliminate them. The formal occupation is pest control workers, SOC 37-2021, and O*NET's reported job titles cover the whole span of the trade: pest control technician, exterminator, pest control applicator, route technician, termite technician, and residential and commercial pest control technician.

The task list makes clear that this is a diagnostic job before it is a spraying job. “Inspect premises to identify infestation source and extent of damage to property, wall, or roof porosity and access to infested locations” and “study preliminary reports or diagrams of infested area and determine treatment type required to eliminate and prevent recurrence of infestation” come before “spray or dust chemical solutions, powders, or gases into rooms, onto clothing, furnishings, or wood.”

It is also a customer-facing job on a route. “Recommend treatment and prevention methods for pest problems to clients,” “drive truck equipped with power spraying equipment,” “record work activities performed” and “measure area dimensions requiring treatment, calculate fumigant requirements, and estimate cost for service” are all in the occupation. If your technicians sell renewals or quote jobs at the door, that belongs in the description, not as a surprise in month two.

Two tasks describe work most candidates do not expect from the advert: “cut or bore openings in building or surrounding concrete, access infested areas, insert nozzle, and inject pesticide to impregnate ground” and “position and fasten edges of tarpaulins over building, and tape vents to ensure air-tight environment and to check for leaks.” Termite and fumigation work is physical, dirty, and involves crawl spaces. Say so.

Pest control technician job description template

Copy this, replace the square brackets, and delete the lines that do not apply. The licensing section below explains how to write the requirements list so that it does not exclude the people you are actually going to hire.

The licensing problem, and how to write around it

Almost every pest control advert has the same defect: it lists “must be licensed” in the requirements, and then the company hires unlicensed people anyway because there are not enough licensed ones. The requirement is doing nothing except deterring good applicants. Writing it properly needs a short tour of who is allowed to do what.

Certification is administered by the states under federal minimum standards in 40 CFR Part 171. Under 40 CFR 171.103, “a commercial applicator must be at least 18 years old,” and must demonstrate practical knowledge across nine competency areas: label and labeling comprehension, safety, environment, pests, pesticides, equipment, application methods, laws and regulations, and responsibilities of supervisors of noncertified applicators. Structural work sits in the category for industrial, institutional and structural pest control — category 7 in the federal scheme, though states number and name their categories differently, so check yours before you print a number in the advert.

Certification is not permanent. Under 40 CFR 171.107(a), “each commercial and private applicator certification shall expire five years after issuance, unless the applicator is recertified in accordance with this section,” and states may set shorter periods. That is a recurring cost and a recurring administrative task, and saying in the advert that you carry both is a genuine differentiator against the smaller operators who do not.

Now the part that changes your hiring. A new technician does not have to be certified to work, because federal rules provide for noncertified applicators working under the direct supervision of a certified applicator. 40 CFR 171.201 sets the conditions: “a noncertified applicator must be at least 18 years old” for the ordinary case, and “the noncertified applicator has been instructed within the last 12 months in the safe operation of any equipment he or she will use for mixing, loading, transferring, or applying pesticides.” The supervising certified applicator must ensure the noncertified applicator has access to the product labeling, the correct personal protective equipment, site-specific instructions and functioning equipment, and “a means to immediately communicate with the certified applicator” must be available whenever restricted use pesticides are involved. The certified applicator must also “be physically present at the site of the use being supervised when required by the product labeling.”

So the honest requirements line is not “must be licensed.” It is “must be 18, must have a clean driving record, and must be willing to get certified in [category] within [N] days — we pay for it.” That is a much larger applicant pool, it is accurate about what the job needs on day one, and it advertises a benefit that costs you a few hundred dollars and reads to a candidate like an investment in them.

Two cautions. First, state rules sit on top of the federal minimums and some states are stricter about what an uncertified technician may do unsupervised, particularly for termite and fumigation work — verify your state's rule before you promise a candidate anything. Second, if the role genuinely requires an already-certified applicator on day one, say why in the advert, because candidates read an unexplained licence requirement as a filter rather than a fact.

What you may and may not ask for

Age is one of the few places where a floor is genuinely lawful here: both the certification standard and the supervision rule set 18 as the minimum, so requiring applicants to be 18 is job-related and defensible. Requiring 21 is not, unless your insurer sets it for the vehicle — and if that is the reason, say so.

Driving record is fair to ask about, since the job is a route in a company vehicle. Ask about the licence and the record, not about accidents in the abstract, and apply the same standard to everyone.

Physical ability is where most employers go wrong. Crawl spaces, ladders, and lifting are real requirements, so state them as demands of the job in the description — and then test them after a conditional offer, through a physical applied to everyone in the job category. Do not ask about disability, medical history or past workers' compensation claims before an offer; the Americans with Disabilities Act does not permit it.

Criminal history deserves a line, because it is common in this trade to screen hard on it. Technicians enter people's homes, so a background check after a conditional offer is reasonable. Many states and cities restrict when you may ask, and require an individualised assessment of the offence's relationship to the job rather than a blanket bar. Put the check after the offer, ask about it once, and be ready to explain the connection.

How to customise it for your setting

Residential route. The daily reality is stop count, driving, and homeowners who want to talk. Put the stop count in the advert — candidates coming from other route jobs read it instantly and it filters better than any adjective.

Commercial and food service. Different hours, different documentation, and often audit requirements from the customer's own food safety scheme. If your technicians write reports that go into a third-party audit, that is a skill and a selling point; say it.

Termite and fumigation. The heaviest and most technical work in the trade, and the part with the most additional certification. If the role is termite-specific, title it that way. Fumigation in particular usually carries separate state credentialing, and the pool of people who hold it is very small.

Wildlife and exclusion. Increasingly split out as its own role and often licensed separately by the state wildlife agency rather than the pesticide programme. Do not fold it into a general technician advert if it is really a separate job.

Once the description is written, the next two decisions are where to advertise it and how to reach trades candidates at all. Our guides to hiring skilled trades fast and to installer recruiting cover both.

Writing the ad version

Cut the description down to about 150 words for the advert itself. Lead with the pay and the structure — if there is commission, say roughly what a technician actually earns rather than quoting a ceiling nobody reaches. Second, the vehicle. Third, the licensing: “no licence needed to start; we pay for your certification.” Fourth, one honest sentence about the physical side, because a technician who quits in week three after their first crawl space is more expensive than the applicant you deterred.

Leave out “fast-paced environment” and “team player.” Put the route size in instead.

What this template will not fix

The turnover in this occupation is structural: about 13,700 openings a year against 108,700 jobs, most of them replacements rather than growth. A better job description improves who applies and how accurately they self-select, but it will not hold a technician whose route grew by ten stops without a pay change, and it will not compete with a firm two towns over paying two dollars more.

It also will not settle your state's licensing rules. The federal standards above are the floor; the details that will actually govern your hire — category names, supervision limits, how long a new technician may work before certifying — come from your state lead agency, and they are worth a phone call before you write the requirements section.

Wage, employment, projection, self-employment, education and training figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections program, National Employment Matrix, occupational projections and worker characteristics, 2025–35, SOC 37-2021, read at source 9 September 2026 (table). Task statements and reported job titles: O*NET OnLine 37-2021.00, read at source 9 September 2026. Commercial applicator minimum age, competency standards and certification categories: 40 CFR 171.103. Certification period: 40 CFR 171.107(a). Direct supervision of noncertified applicators: 40 CFR 171.201. All read at source 9 September 2026 via the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Pre-offer medical enquiries: Americans with Disabilities Act, referenced generally. Nothing here is legal advice, and state pesticide certification rules sit on top of the federal minimums.