Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians 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 Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $45,660. 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

May 2024 employment stood at 36,880, or 0.02% of the U.S. total. California leads the state table with 4,360 jobs; the top three states sum to 23.0% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: South Dakota posts a location quotient of 7.00, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.

One in ten workers in this field earns $36,920 or less, and one in ten earns $76,860 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 2.1 to 1 and the annual gap is $39,940. The mean ($55,290) versus median ($52,080) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

Sorted by employment, the table below puts California first at 4,360 jobs; sorted by median pay instead, Nevada would lead at $63,990. Both orderings are printed in one table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Farm Equipment Mechanics and Service Technicians stands number 445 by employment and number 490 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 12% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.6% of the group's 6,045,030 jobs. In 22 of the 47 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $52,080, 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

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN is the largest metro employer with 540 jobs, 1.5% of the national total. The first table ranks metros by employment; the second ranks them by mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs in the occupation, because a three-person metro can top a pay table by accident.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Fresno, CA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $52,620 a year, against $75,110 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN. A gap that size between two metro labor markets is why the same occupation title can fund two very different budgets in two different cities.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

The median annual wage of $52,080 works out to $4,340 a month before taxes, $2,003 per biweekly paycheck, and $1,002 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($45,660) to the 75th ($63,070) is worth $17,410 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 $57,288 would sit between the median ($52,080) and the 75th percentile ($63,070), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $45,660, is $6,420 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

The occupations BLS groups with this one, by size: Wind Turbine Service Technicians, Electronic Equipment Installers and Repairers, Motor Vehicles, Precision Instrument and Equipment Repairers, All Other, Signal and Track Switch Repairers, Electrical and Electronics Installers and Repairers, Transportation Equipment, Musical Instrument Repairers and Tuners. Every one of the 826 published occupations is indexed on the Careers hub.