Last updated: May 3, 2026

Industrial Machinery Mechanic Salary by State 2026

Name: Industrial Machinery Mechanic Salary by State 2025-2026
Creator: Manufacturing Lead Generation
License: https://manufacturingleadgeneration.com/terms/

Industrial machinery mechanics are the people plants call when conveyors stop, packaging lines drift, bearings fail, or a production cell starts chewing through uptime. In the latest O*NET wage tables for Industrial Machinery Mechanics, the published state median runs from $57,220 in Mississippi to $86,590 in Alaska.

This resource pulls together every available O*NET local wage page and O*NET state trend page for industrial machinery mechanics, then organizes the numbers into one place you can actually use. If you're benchmarking industrial maintenance pay, planning plant expansion, recruiting maintenance talent, or selling into factories that struggle with downtime, this gives you a cleaner view of pay, demand, and hiring pressure. Use it to compare markets, adjust pay bands, and spot where maintenance hiring is likely to stay tight. We compiled 413 core data points and 104 source links, and every core number links to the original source page.

Industrial machinery mechanic pay, quick snapshot

$63,760

National median annual pay, O*NET wage tables

439,600

US employment, O*NET national trends panel

16%

National projected growth through 2034

45,700

Projected annual openings nationwide

National industrial machinery mechanic salary overview
Top-paying states
Lower-paying states
Fastest-growth states
States with the most openings
Full salary and openings table
How manufacturers should read this data
What actually drives pay
A hiring playbook for industrial maintenance compensation
FAQ
Cite this page
Sources

National industrial machinery mechanic salary overview

At the national level, industrial machinery mechanics rank among the most important maintenance roles on the plant floor. The latest wage table shows a median annual wage of $63,760, a 75th percentile wage of $78,070, and a 90th percentile wage of $92,730. Source: O*NET national wage row.

Demand is large and still growing. O*NET's national trends panel shows 439,600 industrial machinery mechanic jobs nationwide, rising to 510,300 over the current projection window, with 45,700 annual job openings expected because expansion and replacement demand both matter. Source: O*NET national trends panel.

That hiring pressure makes sense if you've spent time around packaging equipment, CNC cells, stamping presses, food processing lines, or automated material handling. Industrial maintenance mechanics are not just wrench-turners. They diagnose failures, replace worn components, align machinery, support preventive maintenance, and help keep throughput from falling apart when machines start acting up. On many floors, they are the line between a small issue and a missed ship date.

Across the states with published wage data, the average state median is $66,270. The gap from Mississippi to Alaska is $29,370, or about 51%. That spread is big enough to change how you budget for a maintenance team, especially if your plant expects strong electrical troubleshooting, PLC awareness, or multi-craft work from the role.

What this means on the shop floor

Maintenance pay is tightly tied to uptime risk. When a plant cannot attract solid mechanics, supervisors lose hours to fire drills, planned maintenance slips, and operators wait longer on repairs. That is one reason the BLS outlook for industrial maintenance roles matters to operations leaders, not just HR teams.

Top-paying states for industrial machinery mechanics

The highest-paying industrial maintenance markets are not random. Alaska, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Nevada, and Washington sit near the top of the current table. Some have higher local labor costs. Others pay up because the market is smaller, the technical expectations are broader, or skilled mechanics are harder to replace quickly.

There is another pattern worth watching. Several top-paying states do not lead the country in raw openings. They pay more because the labor pool is tight, specialization is high, or plant operators cannot afford slow repairs. If your team recruits nationally, these are the states where lowball offers usually fail first.

Rank	State	Median annual pay	Projected growth	Annual openings
1	Alaska	$86,590	17%	20
2	District of Columbia	$85,380	7%	10
3	Hawaii	$80,180	7%	60
4	Nevada	$75,490	32%	220
5	Washington	$75,220	15%	1,030
6	Wyoming	$74,510	18%	200
7	California	$73,840	17%	2,940
8	Connecticut	$73,530	21%	320
9	New Jersey	$73,000	17%	1,070
10	Oregon	$71,430	24%	610

Alaska leads the published table at $86,590. That does not mean every mechanic in the state earns that number, but it does show where employers are most willing to pay for uptime protection and deeper troubleshooting skill.

Lower-paying states still are not always easy hiring markets

The lower end of the table includes Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Georgia. On paper, those markets look cheaper. In practice, some are still tough because the number of experienced mechanics is small, the role blends electrical and mechanical work, or one large employer can tighten the market fast.

That is the trap in salary benchmarking for industrial maintenance. A lower median wage does not mean abundant labor. It can mean the market is thin, rural, or dependent on a small number of plants and service contractors. Teams that benchmark only on wage and ignore openings or local employment depth often end up with longer vacancies and more overtime burn.

Rank	State	Median annual pay	Projected growth	Annual openings
1	Mississippi	$57,220	23%	580
2	Arkansas	$58,410	22%	680
3	New Mexico	$59,420	24%	280
4	South Dakota	$59,690	27%	140
5	Georgia	$60,100	26%	1,450
6	Florida	$60,340	23%	1,750
7	Alabama	$60,390	25%	1,790
8	North Carolina	$60,860	22%	1,570
9	South Carolina	$61,260	26%	1,010
10	Missouri	$61,270	16%	590

Why this matters

Mississippi has the lowest published median at $57,220, but that does not automatically make it an easy maintenance hiring market. Plants still need to check the local labor base and openings count before assuming the wage table tells the full story.

Fastest-growth states for industrial machinery mechanic demand

The fastest-growth states tell you where maintenance demand is building fastest. Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Rhode Island currently lead the projections table. Some of those states are growing because of warehousing and food production. Others are riding semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, or general industrial expansion.

Growth is useful because wages often lag behind plant reality. A state can show stronger projected demand before compensation tables fully catch up. If your comp team waits for old median figures to move, you can lose good mechanics during the first few recruiting rounds.

Rank	State	Projected growth	Current employment	Projected employment
1	Utah	38%	3,680	5,060
2	Nevada	32%	1,830	2,420
3	Arizona	30%	3,850	5,000
4	Idaho	29%	1,920	2,480
5	Rhode Island	28%	810	1,040
6	Tennessee	28%	9,000	11,530
7	South Dakota	27%	1,250	1,590
8	Texas	27%	43,080	54,580
9	Georgia	26%	12,880	16,220
10	South Carolina	26%	8,950	11,240

State growth and openings come from the linked O*NET state trend pages, which pull from the state projections system.

States with the most industrial machinery mechanic openings

Raw openings tell a different story than growth rates. Texas, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin lead on annual openings because they already have large factory, logistics, and food processing footprints. These are the states where replacement demand and expansion demand stack together.

For sales and marketing teams, this is also a practical prospecting list. High openings usually mean more downtime pressure, more training gaps, more PM backlog, and more interest in reliability services, maintenance software, spare parts support, and automation projects.

Rank	State	Annual openings	Current employment	Median annual pay
1	Texas	4,910	43,080	$61,590
2	California	2,940	29,300	$73,840
3	Michigan	2,000	20,680	$63,030
4	Pennsylvania	1,890	18,720	$63,830
5	Wisconsin	1,890	16,970	$64,520
6	Alabama	1,790	16,070	$60,390
7	Florida	1,750	16,090	$60,340
8	North Carolina	1,570	14,600	$60,860
9	Ohio	1,560	15,730	$63,650
10	Indiana	1,550	16,160	$65,670

Full industrial machinery mechanic salary by state table

Not every state publishes every field for this occupation. Where O*NET does not publish a wage or trend number, the table shows N/A. We kept those states in the table anyway so you can see where the public dataset is thin instead of hiding the gaps.

State	Median annual pay	Employment	Growth	Openings
Alabama	$60,390	16,070	25%	1,790
Alaska	$86,590	240	17%	20
Arizona	$64,840	3,850	30%	460
Arkansas	$58,410	6,390	22%	680
California	$73,840	29,300	17%	2,940
Colorado	N/A	4,880	22%	520
Connecticut	$73,530	3,050	21%	320
Delaware	$65,560	830	23%	90
District of Columbia	$85,380	140	7%	10
Florida	$60,340	16,090	23%	1,750
Georgia	$60,100	12,880	26%	1,450
Hawaii	$80,180	730	7%	60
Idaho	$62,570	1,920	29%	230
Illinois	$66,770	8,760	18%	890
Indiana	$65,670	16,160	14%	1,550
Iowa	$65,090	6,710	23%	730
Kansas	$70,170	5,530	20%	580
Kentucky	$64,060	8,210	19%	850
Louisiana	$63,830	6,370	22%	680
Maine	$65,190	1,350	10%	120
Maryland	$64,080	3,310	22%	350
Massachusetts	$70,540	2,020	17%	200
Michigan	$63,030	20,680	14%	2,000
Minnesota	$68,160	6,710	21%	710
Mississippi	$57,220	5,290	23%	580
Missouri	$61,270	5,920	16%	590
Montana	$69,880	900	24%	100
Nebraska	$63,130	2,630	22%	280
Nevada	$75,490	1,830	32%	220
New Hampshire	$61,360	2,040	21%	220
New Jersey	$73,000	10,650	17%	1,070
New Mexico	$59,420	2,550	24%	280
New York	$67,010	11,300	-4%	0
North Carolina	$60,860	14,600	22%	1,570
North Dakota	$65,070	2,090	23%	230
Ohio	$63,650	15,730	16%	1,560
Oklahoma	$62,530	4,740	16%	470
Oregon	$71,430	5,520	24%	610
Pennsylvania	$63,830	18,720	17%	1,890
Rhode Island	$63,870	810	28%	90
South Carolina	$61,260	8,950	26%	1,010
South Dakota	$59,690	1,250	27%	140
Tennessee	$62,830	9,000	28%	1,040
Texas	$61,590	43,080	27%	4,910
Utah	$69,670	3,680	38%	470
Vermont	$62,520	630	18%	60
Virginia	$62,940	12,080	17%	1,210
Washington	$75,220	9,070	15%	1,030
West Virginia	$61,400	3,370	22%	360
Wisconsin	$64,520	16,970	25%	1,890
Wyoming	$74,510	1,970	18%	200

How manufacturers should read this data

If you're hiring industrial machinery mechanics, use three numbers together, not one. First, look at wage. Second, look at openings. Third, look at local employment base. A state with moderate pay but a thin mechanic bench can still be a rough market. A state with high pay but a deeper installed maintenance workforce may be easier to hire in because more talent exists to begin with.

If you're opening a new facility, top-employment states like Texas, California, and Michigan deserve a different read than fast-growth states like Utah and Nevada. The first group often gives you a bigger installed labor base. The second may give you momentum, but also faster wage movement and more competition for the same multi-craft candidates.

If you sell maintenance software, spare parts, MRO services, condition monitoring, or uptime consulting, this dataset helps with market targeting too. States with high employment and high openings usually have more mechanic pain, more PM backlog, and more urgency around reliability programs.

One more caution, public wage data always lags reality a bit. Shift premiums, weekend coverage, emergency call-in expectations, and role-blending can all push real compensation above published medians. In many plants, the strongest mechanic is also handling controls basics, vendor coordination, and process troubleshooting. The public title does not always capture all of that value.

If you are comparing industrial machinery mechanic salaries or researching a mechanic in United States labor markets, remember that this page is built around wage and projections data, not occupational distribution tables. It is useful for hiring and budgeting. It is not a location quotient study, and it does not claim the highest concentration of jobs, concentration of jobs and location quotients, or jobs and location quotients by metro. That distinction matters if you are mapping career paths, facility expansion, or the distribution of repair and maintenance talent across the United States.

What actually drives industrial machinery mechanic pay by state

A lot of salary pages stop at one national number. That misses how the role works in a real plant. Industrial machinery mechanic pay moves with equipment complexity, downtime cost, safety risk, shift structure, and how much independent diagnosis the mechanic is expected to do. Supporting a simple conveyor line is not the same job as keeping a high-speed packaging system, CNC department, or food processing line running cleanly.

Pay also rises when shops expect more than basic repair work. In stronger markets, mechanics are reading prints, handling alignment, changing drives, replacing sensors, supporting PM programs, and helping the plant cut repeat failures. When the role touches uptime and scrap directly, a weak hire gets expensive fast.

Industry mix matters too. Food and beverage, semiconductor, automotive, aerospace, paper, and heavy industrial operations often pay above generic production rates because the cost of downtime is high and process discipline matters more. That is one reason high-output states and technical markets show up near the top of this table.

Cost of living matters, but it is not the whole story. Some high-cost states post strong wages because housing and business overhead are higher. At the same time, some lower-cost states still post solid maintenance pay because the labor pool is tight and advanced industrial capacity is concentrated in a small number of employers. Median wage, openings, and employment should be read together.

Timing matters too. When a market starts heating up, employers usually notice more overtime, longer vacancies, and more counteroffers before wage tables fully move. That lag is why fast-growth states deserve extra attention even if the current median still looks manageable. If projections are rising, compensation pressure usually follows.

Three practical pay drivers

Equipment complexity and downtime cost, especially automated lines and technically messy plants.
Role scope, from basic repair work to diagnostics, PM ownership, controls awareness, and vendor coordination.
Local labor tightness, measured better by openings and employment depth than by wage alone.

A hiring playbook for industrial maintenance compensation

If you are building a compensation plan, start with the state median but do not stop there. Ask what kind of mechanic you actually need. A role focused on basic preventive work is one market. A role that also owns diagnostics, line recovery, electrical troubleshooting, or root-cause work is another. Many employers underpay because the title stays the same while the responsibility expands.

It also helps to translate annual numbers into monthly and hourly thinking for managers. A national median around $63,760 works out to roughly $5,313 per month before overtime, or about $31 per hour if you want a quick per-hour benchmark. That is a cleaner budget anchor than guessing from job boards that mix millwrights, maintenance techs, electricians, and mechanics into one bucket.

Experience bands matter, but years alone are not enough. Five years resetting breakers and changing belts is different from five years diagnosing repeat failures on automated lines. Employers get better hiring results when they benchmark by demonstrated capability instead of tenure alone.

For recruiting teams, the best workflow is simple. Use this page to find the state median, check the local openings number, then ask whether your role sits above or below standard market scope. If your mechanic also supports controls, PM planning, line changeovers, or vendor management, the offer probably needs to sit above the published median.

For industrial marketers, this data is useful because it points to where maintenance pain is concentrated. High-opening states often create demand for reliability consulting, CMMS tools, training, spare parts support, and automation services. When you know where mechanic demand is highest, you know where many factories are feeling uptime pressure and margin pressure at the same time.

This report collects state wage and projection pages for a full-time industrial machinery mechanic or technician role. It does not collect metropolitan areas with the highest wages, areas with the highest concentration, nonmetropolitan areas with the highest concentration, or the highest published employment and wages by metro. It is a state-level report, built for plant hiring and budgeting rather than metro ranking.

Recommended way to use this dataset

Use state wage data for baseline comp, use openings for urgency, use employment depth for talent availability, and use your actual role scope to set the final offer. That is much more reliable than broad salary estimates from job boards.

The state data also helps explain why candidate expectations vary so much. In some markets, an experienced mechanic will treat 30 dollars an hour as ordinary for plant work. In tighter specialty markets, the expected rate may be much higher. Those numbers should not be copied blindly, but they are a reminder that hourly conversations need context around shift rules, line complexity, and what the plant expects the person to solve without help.

FAQ

What is the average industrial machinery mechanic salary in the US?

The latest national wage panel shows a median annual wage of $63,760 for industrial machinery mechanics, with a 75th percentile wage of $78,070. If you are searching for average salary, national average, hourly wage, or pay per year figures, this is the strongest public baseline for the role. The quick per hour in United States benchmark is about $31. Source: O*NET wage tables.

Which state pays industrial machinery mechanics the most?

Among states with published wage data, Alaska currently leads with a median annual wage of $86,590. Source: Alaska O*NET wage page.

Which states hire the most industrial machinery mechanics?

Texas, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are the biggest openings markets in the current projections table because they already have large industrial bases. Source: O*NET state trends.

Why use O*NET for industrial machinery mechanic salary by state?

Because O*NET publishes consistent local wage and trend pages for Industrial Machinery Mechanics across states. Public maintenance salary data is messy, and this is one of the cleaner standard occupation series available. It also lines up better with how the Bureau of Labor Statistics structures industrial maintenance roles than most scraped salary sites do. If you are evaluating career options, comparing industrial machinery mechanic salaries, or selling to companies for industrial repair and maintenance work, that consistency makes the numbers more useful. It also gives you a clean percentile wage estimate for the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 90th percentile pay bands, including the 50th percentile wage that represents median and 50 percent of workers in the middle of the distribution.

What does this page cover, and what does it leave out?

This page covers states and areas only at the state level. It does not publish a list of all areas, a list of all industries, or industries with the highest published wages. It also does not rank whether one metro has a higher or lower value of a wage, whether an area than average pays more than another area than average, or which submarket has the hourly wage published at the best level. Readers who need BLS detail on “maintenance workers” and millwrights, plus deeper industry breakdowns, should use the linked federal sources alongside this state report.

Cite this page

Suggested citation:

Manufacturing Lead Generation. “Industrial Machinery Mechanic Salary by State (2025-2026): Pay, Growth & Openings Data.” Updated May 3, 2026. https://manufacturingleadgeneration.com/industrial-machinery-mechanic-salary-by-state/

If you cite a single state figure, link directly to that state's O*NET wage or trend page as well.

Sources

This page uses O*NET local wage pages, O*NET state trend pages, the O*NET occupation summary, and the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. We list every core source below so editors, journalists, and industrial marketers can verify the data quickly.