Automotive Body and Related Repairers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Automotive Body and Related Repairers ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $45,000. BLS top-codes very high wages ($239,200+ a year, $115.00+ an hour) and marks estimates it cannot publish as n/p.

Employment and concentration

The occupation employed 155,220 people in May 2024, 0.10% of every job BLS counted. California is the largest employer at 14,670 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 24.6% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in Tennessee, whose location quotient of 2.08 says this work is 2.08 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

One in ten workers in this field earns $36,390 or less, and one in ten earns $87,040 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 2.4 to 1 and the annual gap is $50,650. The mean ($58,830) versus median ($51,680) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

The state spread for Automotive Body and Related Repairers runs from the $62,570 median in California down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (14,670 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Automotive Body and Related Repairers stands number 196 by employment and number 499 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations, the group median wage is $59,300 across 51 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 13% less than its group median, and it supplies 2.6% of the group's 6,045,030 jobs. In 18 of the 51 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $51,680, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 7,500 jobs, 4.8% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Chattanooga, TN-GA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $46,860 a year, against $99,620 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $51,680 works out to $4,307 a month before taxes, $1,988 per biweekly paycheck, and $994 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($45,000) to the 75th ($64,780) is worth $19,780 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Run the median through the paycheck calculator for a take-home estimate in your state, compare an offer against your current pay with the salary calculator, and check whether a raise actually beats prices with the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $56,848 would sit between the median ($51,680) and the 75th percentile ($64,780), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $45,000, is $6,680 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Maintenance and Repair Workers, General, Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics, First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers, Industrial Machinery Mechanics, Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers, Bus and Truck Mechanics and Diesel Engine Specialists. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.