Manufacturing salary survey and manufacturing compensation survey prices compared
A manufacturing salary survey costs $395 to $2,500 from a regional association, $3,495 a region from Salary.com's CompData and $7,800 from Mercer if you buy without submitting data, and most are far cheaper or free if you participate. ERI, Aon and Payscale print no price at all. For machinists, assemblers and supervisors, the federal wage survey already publishes manufacturing medians within a percent or two of the all-industry figure.
Hiring a machinist, a maintenance tech or a second shift supervisor this month? Price it on the right. The builder works from the federal wage survey and gives you a band and a posted range you can put in the job ad.
- P25
- $0
- P50 ยท Median
- $0
- P75
- $0
Suggested posted range
Built from public U.S. BLS OES wage data (May 2025 release), adjusted for market, seniority and company stage by the multipliers published in our methodology.
Get bands for your whole team
Get startedWhich manufacturing salary survey a plant under 200 employees actually needs
For most plant floor jobs you do not need a manufacturing survey to get the national number right. In the May 2025 federal wage data, 20 of the 24 production, maintenance and support roles we checked sit within 5 percent of the all-industry median, and machinists, CNC operators and production supervisors are within 1 percent. What a paid survey buys is three things public data leaves out: your local labor market cut by manufacturing, shift differentials, and executive pay by company size.
That split matters because a small manufacturer's payroll is floor-heavy. A 120-person job shop might have eight people in management and engineering and a hundred and ten assembling, machining, welding, inspecting, maintaining and shipping. The expensive mistakes happen on that floor: posting a welder at a number your competitor two exits down the highway beats by three dollars an hour, or pricing a plant maintenance tech off a building maintenance median that runs 24 percent low.
Quick guide
- Assemblers, operators, machinists
- Federal data plus your metro
- Plant maintenance techs
- Manufacturing cut, not all-industry
- Second and third shift premium
- A survey that reports differentials
- Plant manager, GM, owner
- A survey with revenue or size cuts
- Range for a job ad
- Metro market data
Manufacturing compensation survey prices and coverage
Every price below is quoted from the publisher's own product page or order form. The pattern is the same everywhere: submitting your data is the discount. Salary.com drops from $3,495 to $995 a region for participants, Mercer from $7,800 to $2,600, and most association surveys go to zero. Three of the national names print no price at all.
| Survey | Published price | Covers | Sample | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salary.com CompData Manufacturing and Distribution | Participant $995 a region, $4,975 all regions and national. Non-participant $3,495 a region, $17,425 all regions and national | 2,418 jobs, 407 geographies, five US regions. Advertises shift differential and lean manufacturing data | 2,317 organizations, 1.87 million incumbents | Shift differentials and a national cut, updated quarterly |
| Mercer US Manufacturing and Operations Survey | Participant $2,600, non-participant $7,800, three users included | 699 positions, including production, skilled trades, machine operations and maintenance | 2,481 organizations | Professional, engineering and management roles |
| ERI All Manufacturing Salary Survey | Not published. Call to order, participant rate available | 872 benchmark jobs, 44 executive and 828 non-management, published each July | Count not published | Buyers already on ERI's Assessor Series |
| Aon Radford McLagan, manufacturing | Not published. Quote varies with headcount, countries and job types | 1,600 plus manufacturing jobs | 710 plus manufacturing organizations, 2.7 million employees | Large and multinational manufacturers |
| Payscale, manufacturing | Not published. Every plan is Contact Sales | Plant managers, engineers, supervisors and assembly line workers, hourly and salaried | Not published | Teams wanting software plus data |
| ASE Compensation Survey (Michigan) | Non-member $2,500, or $1,250 if you participate. Member $450, free if you participate | 600 positions in 36 job families, including welding and facilities maintenance | 467 Michigan companies, nearly 80 percent with 1 to 500 employees | Michigan plants |
| MRA Benchmark Compensation Survey (Midwest) | Member $1,199, non-member $2,399, per person | 568 jobs with IA, IL, MN, OH and WI sections | 679 organizations | Upper Midwest employers |
| ERC Wage Survey (Northeast Ohio) | Free to participants. Non-participant $575 member, $2,300 non-member | 40 production, maintenance, warehouse and transportation jobs. Wages exclude shift differentials | 52 organizations, 2,961 employees | Hourly plant rates in Northeast Ohio |
| The Manufacturers' Association Wage and Salary Survey (south central PA) | Free to participants. Non-member $600, member $395 | Plant and office roles in the region | Not published | Central Pennsylvania plants |
| NTMA Wage and Fringe Benefit Report | Free to participating members. Member $125, non-member $750 | Tooling and machining shops | Not published | Machine shops and tool and die |
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics | $0 | Every occupation in manufacturing nationally, plus every metro across all industries. Excludes shift differentials | Full federal establishment survey, May 2025 estimates | Base pay bands for most floor roles, if you can work the tables |
| WageList | $99 a month, or $948 a year | Staff roles by market, with a band and a postable range | Built on the federal wage survey above | Bands and job ad ranges all year, without a sales call |
Four honest caveats. Our own row does not report shift differentials or executive pay by plant size, so it is not a substitute for CompData or a regional survey when you set the third shift premium or the plant manager's package. Association prices assume the region fits you: ERC reports 52 Northeast Ohio employers, which is excellent if you are in Akron and irrelevant if you are in Texas. Participant prices hide the real cost, which is the staff hours to match your jobs and submit the data. And the IndustryWeek salary survey that ranks for this search is 374 self-reported readers, mostly managers and engineers, with an average of $135,525, so it is not a benchmark for hourly pay.
The plant floor is priced correctly by public data, with two exceptions
The federal Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program publishes wages for every occupation in the manufacturing sector, NAICS 31 to 33, nationally. Put the manufacturing median next to the all-industry median and most of the gap disappears. Machinists are 0.4 percent lower in manufacturing, CNC tool operators 0.4 percent higher, production supervisors 1.0 percent higher, industrial machinery mechanics 1.8 percent higher. For those jobs a factory is the labor market, so the two numbers are close to the same measurement.
The first exception is general maintenance and repair workers, 24.0 percent higher in manufacturing. The all-industry figure is dominated by apartment complexes, schools and property managers, where the job is fixing doors and HVAC. In a plant the same code holds someone keeping presses, conveyors and PLC-controlled lines running, and the pay reflects it. Price that role off the cross-industry median and you will lose every candidate who has worked in a plant before.
The second exception is the top of the company. General and operations managers run 23.8 percent higher and chief executives 23.0 percent higher, and the spread between the 25th and 75th percentile is 121 and 143 percent. That is a code too broad to price a job, and it is where a survey with revenue or headcount cuts earns its price. Welders go the other way, 4.7 percent lower in manufacturing, because the all-industry figure includes pipeline and construction welders.
The three numbers that matter most
- Machinist
- $58,750 across all industries, $58,540 in manufacturing. A 0.4 percent difference, on one of the hardest roles to fill.
- Maintenance and repair worker
- $49,590 across all industries, $61,500 in manufacturing. Price off a generic site and you are about $5.70 an hour low.
- General and operations manager
- $105,770 across all industries, $130,960 in manufacturing, and a quartile spread of 121 percent. Neither number is your plant manager.
| Occupation | Employed in manufacturing | All industries | Manufacturing | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assemblers and fabricators | 1,074,240 | $44,650 | $46,140 | 3.3% higher |
| First-line supervisors of production workers | 491,210 | $74,450 | $75,180 | 1.0% higher |
| Laborers and material movers, hand | 400,040 | $40,240 | $43,180 | 7.3% higher |
| Inspectors, testers, sorters and samplers | 382,920 | $48,570 | $49,270 | 1.4% higher |
| Packaging and filling machine operators | 298,640 | $43,220 | $44,450 | 2.8% higher |
| Welders, cutters, solderers and brazers | 274,710 | $53,750 | $51,210 | 4.7% lower |
| Machinists | 241,490 | $58,750 | $58,540 | 0.4% lower |
| Industrial machinery mechanics | 232,500 | $64,520 | $65,710 | 1.8% higher |
| Maintenance and repair workers, general | 206,760 | $49,590 | $61,500 | 24.0% higher |
| Industrial truck and tractor operators | 174,010 | $46,420 | $45,860 | 1.2% lower |
| CNC tool operators | 154,890 | $50,690 | $50,910 | 0.4% higher |
| Production, planning and expediting clerks | 123,160 | $59,650 | $60,970 | 2.2% higher |
| Buyers and purchasing agents | 112,200 | $77,710 | $77,890 | 0.2% higher |
| Human resources specialists | 67,120 | $75,940 | $79,270 | 4.4% higher |
| Industrial engineers | 248,860 | $102,440 | $101,160 | 1.2% lower |
| Mechanical engineers | 130,930 | $104,110 | $101,570 | 2.4% lower |
| Industrial production managers | 185,250 | $126,060 | $125,280 | 0.6% lower |
| General and operations managers | 249,060 | $105,770 | $130,960 | 23.8% higher |
| Chief executives | 10,990 | $213,990 | $263,290 | 23.0% higher |
Annual median wage, May 2025 estimates from the federal Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, sectors 31, 32 and 33 (manufacturing) against all industries. Assemblers and fabricators is the combined federal code that now holds team assemblers. How the survey is built, and where it falls short, is on our BLS salary data page.
Percentile ladders for plant roles, read as a salary band
A survey report only becomes useful once it is a band with a floor, a midpoint and a ceiling. Take the 25th percentile as the floor, the median as the midpoint and the 75th as the ceiling. Hourly production roles land at a spread of 29 to 45 percent, which is roughly where comp practice puts nonexempt grades. Hourly figures below are the annual figure divided by 2,080 hours, the same convention the federal survey uses.
| Role | Floor (25th) | Midpoint (median) | Ceiling (75th) | Median per hour | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production helper | $35,530 | $39,340 | $46,170 | $18.91 | 30% |
| Material handler | $37,100 | $43,180 | $48,020 | $20.76 | 29% |
| Packaging machine operator | $37,490 | $44,450 | $50,100 | $21.37 | 34% |
| Forklift operator | $39,510 | $45,860 | $50,960 | $22.05 | 29% |
| Assembler | $38,360 | $46,140 | $55,760 | $22.18 | 45% |
| Quality inspector | $43,050 | $49,270 | $61,460 | $23.69 | 43% |
| CNC operator | $45,300 | $50,910 | $61,830 | $24.48 | 36% |
| Welder | $46,560 | $51,210 | $60,920 | $24.62 | 31% |
| Machinist | $47,630 | $58,540 | $65,390 | $28.14 | 37% |
| Maintenance technician | $49,980 | $61,500 | $74,210 | $29.57 | 48% |
| Industrial maintenance mechanic | $57,860 | $65,710 | $78,710 | $31.59 | 36% |
| Production supervisor | $59,920 | $75,180 | $90,810 | $36.14 | 52% |
| Plant or operations manager | $88,400 | $130,960 | $195,100 | $62.96 | 121% |
Read the last row as a warning rather than a band. A 121 percent spread means the code holds the operations lead of a 40-person shop and the general manager of a 900-person plant, and the survey cannot tell them apart. Also note that the maintenance technician spread, 48 percent, is wider than the mechanic's 36: the code runs from a general handyman role to a multi-craft tech, so decide which one you are hiring before you pick a point in the band. The mechanics of turning percentiles into grades are on how to create salary bands, and the arithmetic of spread and midpoint is on the salary midpoint calculator.
Getting manufacturing and your county at the same time
Plant wages are local. The federal survey publishes occupation by industry nationally, and occupation by metro area across all industries, but not occupation by industry by metro. That gap is the real reason regional manufacturers associations sell wage surveys: they report what plants within driving distance pay.
Where your role has no manufacturing gap, the metro figure is the answer on its own. A machinist in Grand Rapids, Michigan has a published all-industry median of $50,110, which is 14.7 percent under the national $58,750. In Greenville, South Carolina it is $57,970, only 1.3 percent under. Two plant towns, a $7,860 difference on the same job, and a national survey average would have told you neither.
Where the role does have a gap, use a two-step ratio. Divide the manufacturing median by the national all-industry median to get the sector factor, then apply it to your metro. For maintenance and repair workers the factor is $61,500 divided by $49,590, which is 1.240. Grand Rapids publishes $48,530 across all industries, so the plant estimate is about $60,200. Greenville publishes $49,500, which gives about $61,400. Doing that by hand for every job title is the part nobody has time for, and it is what the builder at the top of this page does.
Worked example
- Maintenance, all industries, national
- $49,590
- Maintenance, manufacturing, national
- $61,500
- Sector factor
- 1.240
- Maintenance, Grand Rapids, all industries
- $48,530
- Estimate, Grand Rapids plant
- about $60,200
Apply the same factor to your own metro. How far to move a band for location is covered in geographic pay differentials.
Four things a manufacturing survey gives you that public data does not
Shift differentials
The federal wage survey excludes shift differentials by design, so its medians are base pay. What plants near you add for second and third shift only comes from a survey that asks.
Plants in your region
Metro data mixes every employer in the county. A regional association survey reports only manufacturers, which is who you actually lose welders to.
Executives by company size
Plant manager, GM and owner pay track revenue and headcount far more than title. Federal codes cannot separate a 40-person shop from a 900-person plant.
Policies and practices
Attendance bonuses, overtime practice, starting rates and wage increase budgets. The federal survey records wages only.
Before paying a differential off a survey, be clear on the overtime consequence. A night shift premium goes into the regular rate for overtime, so every overtime hour on third shift costs more than 1.5 times the base rate. The rules and the worked arithmetic are on shift differential pay.
Who buys manufacturing salary data, and what they need from it
The plant HR manager
At a 50 to 200 person manufacturer, hiring assemblers, operators and techs every month and needing rates that hold when the floor compares notes in the break room.
The owner or GM
Running HR on top of operations, wanting each offer documented and a structure the next hire fits into. See WageList for small teams.
The controller
Building next year's labor budget and needing a wage increase assumption per job family, not one number for the whole plant. See the salary increase calculator.
The HR lead in a posting state
Hiring in states that require a good faith range in the ad, which covers hourly production jobs as fully as salaried ones. See job posting salary ranges.
Posting laws cover hourly plant jobs, and the rate you post has to be real
State salary range laws count employees and look at where the work happens. They do not exempt hourly or production roles: an hourly job gets an hourly range. A plant hiring in Illinois, New York, Washington, Colorado or California posts a good faith range for its assemblers the same way it does for its engineers. That turns wage data from a once-a-year budgeting exercise into something attached to every job ad. Our pay transparency law guide covers each state, and the state by state table puts them side by side.
The other compliance point is the one that costs plants money in back pay. Production supervisors and leads who spend most of the shift on the line may not meet the executive exemption duties test even when they are paid a salary, and a salaried nonexempt lead is still owed overtime. Check the exempt vs non-exempt rules before you put a supervisor on salary. The general-market survey publishers are compared on salary survey providers.
Price every job on the floor, not just the plant manager
Metro data, a band per role, and a range you can paste into the job ad. No sales call to find out what it costs.
Manufacturing salary survey questions buyers ask
How much does a manufacturing salary survey cost?
It depends on whether you submit data. Regional association surveys run $395 to $2,500 for a non-participant and are often free if you participate. Salary.com's CompData Manufacturing and Distribution survey costs $995 a region for participants and $3,495 for non-participants. Mercer's Manufacturing and Operations survey costs $2,600 or $7,800. ERI, Aon and Payscale publish no price.
What is the best manufacturing compensation survey?
For hourly plant jobs in one region, a regional employers or manufacturers association survey, because it reports only employers near you. For a national cut with shift differential data, Salary.com CompData, the one survey that advertises differentials. For executive and professional roles across 699 positions and 2,481 organizations, Mercer's Manufacturing and Operations survey.
Does the Salary.com CompData manufacturing survey include shift differentials?
Yes. Salary.com says its CompData Manufacturing and Distribution survey provides data on shift differentials and lean manufacturing usage, across 2,418 jobs and 407 geographies. That matters because the federal wage survey excludes shift differentials from its figures, and ERC's Northeast Ohio hourly wage survey states that its reported wages do not include them either.
How much do manufacturing workers make?
In the May 2025 federal wage estimates for the manufacturing sector, the median assembler earns $46,140 a year, about $22.18 an hour. Machinists earn $58,540, welders $51,210, CNC tool operators $50,910 and production supervisors $75,180. Industrial production managers earn $125,280. These are base wages and exclude shift differentials and overtime.
How much does the ERI manufacturing salary survey cost?
ERI does not publish a price. Its All Manufacturing Salary Survey page, covering 872 benchmark jobs, tells buyers to call to order, and participants get a complimentary executive summary and a participant rate. Subscribers to ERI's Assessor Series get the results free when they participate. The Assessor subscription itself is quote-only, one named user per license.
What salary survey should a small manufacturer use?
Start with your regional employers or manufacturers association, since several give the report free to participants and charge $395 to $2,500 otherwise. ASE in Michigan says nearly 80 percent of its 467 participants have 1 to 500 employees. For the many plant roles where federal data already matches the sector, public wage data covers the rest.
Do manufacturers have to post pay ranges for hourly jobs?
Yes, wherever a state pay transparency law reaches the job. These laws count employees and look at where the work is performed, and they do not exempt hourly or production roles. An hourly assembler job in Illinois, New York, Washington, Colorado or California gets a good faith hourly range in the posting.
Is the IndustryWeek salary survey a good benchmark?
Not for hourly pay. IndustryWeek's 2025 survey is a free editorial article built on 374 self-reported reader responses, mostly plant operations managers, engineers and corporate staff. Its $135,525 average salary says more about who reads IndustryWeek than about what a plant pays its assemblers, machinists or maintenance techs.
Start with the role you are hiring this month
Pick the job, pick the market, get a band and a postable range in under a minute.
Keep going
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ERI salary survey pricing
What ERI charges, and what a small manufacturer gets for it.
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Shift differential pay
Setting the second and third shift premium, and what it does to overtime.
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Salary survey providers
The general-market publishers and what each one charges.
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Salary bands
Turning percentiles into grades the whole plant shares.