Manufacturing Supervisor Salary by State 2026

National manufacturing supervisor salary overview

At the national level, manufacturing supervisors are not paid like broad production labor. The latest CareerOneStop and O*NET wage panel shows a median annual wage of $71,190, which works out to a median hourly wage of $34.23. The 75th-percentile annual wage reaches $86,770, and the 90th percentile climbs to $106,960. That tells you this role gets expensive fast when a plant needs people who can run labor, quality, and output at the same time.

Demand is steady too. O*NET's national trend panel shows 698,600 supervisors employed nationally in 2024, with projected annual openings of 67,700. Growth is only 1%, but that misses the real hiring pressure. Plants still need replacements for retirements, internal promotions, greenfield starts, and supervisors who burn out after carrying too much overtime or too many direct reports.

State data matters because the market is not uniform. Wyoming comes in about 24% above the national median, while Arkansas sits roughly 14% below it. Large manufacturing states like Texas, Ohio, and Wisconsin all have different combinations of wage level, labor supply, and opening volume. A supervisor pay band that works in Arkansas can be a non-starter in Connecticut or New Jersey.

1. National median annual pay is $71,190. CareerOneStop / O*NET
2. National median hourly pay is $34.23. CareerOneStop / O*NET
3. The highest state median in this dataset is $88,060 in Wyoming. Source
4. The lowest state median in this dataset is $61,110 in Arkansas. Source
5. The published state-median average across this dataset is $71,219. National benchmark
6. The pay spread between the highest and lowest state median is $26,950, or about 44%. Top source and bottom source

Manufacturing supervisor salary by state, full table

The table below combines wage medians, hourly medians, employment, projected growth, and annual openings for every state plus DC. This is useful if you're asking practical questions like how much should a production supervisor make in my state, where is the labor market tightest, or which states combine high pay with high hiring volume.

We left no published values blank on purpose. If a state has a missing wage or trend field, it stays marked N/A rather than getting backfilled with guesses. That's slower, but it's how you build a page someone can cite in a report without apologizing later.

Top-paying states for manufacturing supervisors

The highest-paying states are not random. They skew toward higher-cost labor markets, regulated production environments, and states where supervisory roles often cover more technical complexity. Wyoming leads the published wage data at $88,060. Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey also clear the upper end of the national market.

If you're recruiting in these states, median pay alone may understate the real offer needed for a strong candidate. Plants competing for supervisors in aerospace, medtech, pharma packaging, or high-mix precision manufacturing often need extra room for shift premiums, bonus eligibility, and progression paths into superintendent or plant manager roles.

Lowest-paying states for manufacturing supervisors

The lowest-paying states still sit on top of meaningful responsibility. The pay numbers are lower, but the job is not easier. In Arkansas, Florida, and New Mexico, the state medians are well below the US midpoint. That can create a tough management layer where plants want leadership-level performance while paying closer to high-end operator wages.

This is one reason some factories struggle to keep front-line leaders. A strong lead operator or maintenance tech can sometimes make similar money with less people management, less off-shift headache, and less accountability for misses they didn't personally create.

Fastest-growth states for manufacturing supervisor jobs

Growth tells a different story than wage. Utah leads the current state trend data at 19%, followed by Alaska, Idaho, and Arizona. These are the kinds of markets where new capacity, population growth, and distribution-to-production expansion can create a scramble for supervisors who know how to stand up teams fast.

For service providers, these states matter because greenfield and expansion markets tend to spend on training, recruiting, quality systems, MES, and plant operations support. For manufacturers, they matter because a fast-growth market can feel expensive even when the median wage isn't the highest in the country.

States with the most manufacturing supervisor openings

If you care about where hiring pressure is heaviest, opening volume is the better signal. Texas leads by a wide margin with 6,570 projected annual openings. California, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Georgia all post large opening counts too.

Big opening numbers don't always mean explosive growth. Often they reflect large existing employment bases, normal churn, retirement replacement, and promotions into plant-management roles. Either way, these are the states where supervisor recruiting, leadership development, and retention systems matter most.

Regional pay patterns

Regional averages smooth out some of the noise from single-state outliers and show where the supervisor market is structurally richer. The Northeast leads this dataset on average, helped by states like Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. The South is more mixed. It includes several high-opening markets, but wages often trail the Northeast and parts of the Midwest.

If you're opening a plant or expanding a product line, this matters. Regions with higher supervisor pay usually bring deeper leadership talent, but they also bring more competition and less room for a weak compensation package. Regions with lower pay may look cheaper on paper, but the leadership bench can be thinner and training time can be longer.

How supervisor pay compares with other manufacturing roles

A supervisor role usually lands in the gap between skilled trades and plant management. It pays clearly above broad production work, but below the level of a plant manager or many engineering leadership paths. That makes sense. The job is part labor management, part firefighting, and part execution discipline.

The practical takeaway is simple. If you want a strong lead who can coach, document, escalate, manage attendance, and still keep the line moving, paying only a small premium over your best operator is risky. Plants that treat the role like a small promotion often end up cycling through burned-out supervisors.

How manufacturers should read this data

First, do not read this as a generic middle-management table. A first-line production supervisor is often the person absorbing the real friction in a plant. They deal with machine downtime, quality drift, absenteeism, training gaps, changeovers, and customer pressure before those problems ever make it to the plant manager. In a weak labor market, the title might look modest. In a real plant, the role can make or break a shift.

Second, pay medians are a starting point, not a final offer. Union settings, regulated industries, high-mix low-volume shops, and 24/7 plants can all pay above the state median because the supervisory burden is heavier. A food plant running sanitation changeovers and traceability is not paying for the same job as a simple single-line assembly operation, even if both call it a production supervisor.

Third, watch openings alongside pay. A state can have moderate wages and still be brutally competitive if opening volume is high and the leadership bench is thin. Texas is the cleanest example in this dataset. The median wage is not the highest in the country, but the annual opening count is massive. That means recruiters, staffing firms, and competing plants are all fishing in the same pond.

Finally, this data is useful beyond hiring. If you sell workforce software, quality systems, leadership training, recruiting services, or plant operations support, supervisor-heavy states are often the best places to focus. Front-line leadership pressure usually shows up before broader operational pain gets budget attention.

Sources