Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers Salary and Pay
How much do Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers make?
Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers pay a median of $101,020 a year in the BLS May 2024 survey, with a mean of $108,940 across 6,770 counted jobs. Half of all workers in the occupation earn between $81,040 and $129,860.
Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers salary data without the self-reported noise: BLS surveyed the employers, and this page prints the ladder, the states, and the metros exactly as the survey published them.
Updated November 5, 2026
Salary converter for this occupation
Conversions use 12 months, 26 biweekly periods, 52 weeks, and 2,080 hours. No level in this occupation's ladder reaches the BLS top code, so every figure the converter shows is a published estimate rather than a floor.
The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)
| Pay level | Annual wage | Hourly wage |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $62,500 | $30.05 |
| 25th percentile | $81,040 | $38.96 |
| Median (50th) | $101,020 | $48.57 |
| 75th percentile | $129,860 | $62.44 |
| 90th percentile | $163,740 | $78.72 |
A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $81,040. 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 6,770, or 0.00% of the U.S. total. California leads the state table with 780 jobs; the top three states sum to 32.3% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Alaska posts a location quotient of 24.77, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.
Read the ladder as a career path in numbers: $81,040 at the 25th percentile, $101,020 at the middle, $129,860 at the 75th. The full 10-to-90 range runs $101,240, a ratio of 2.6 to 1. Where a specific job offer lands on that range says more about the role's level than the occupation's headline median does.
Pay by state
Every state with a publishable estimate is in this table, 29 of them, sorted by jobs. The pay leader by median is California at $142,520; the jobs leader is California:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 780 | 0.0 | 0.99 | $135,060 | $142,520 |
| Colorado | 730 | 0.3 | 5.76 | n/p | n/p |
| Arizona | 680 | 0.2 | 4.82 | $113,770 | $102,780 |
| Nevada | 430 | 0.3 | 6.39 | $115,360 | $113,140 |
| Illinois | 400 | 0.1 | 1.50 | n/p | n/p |
| West Virginia | 400 | 0.6 | 13.01 | $92,130 | $84,000 |
| Alaska | 350 | 1.1 | 24.77 | $122,830 | $109,350 |
| Utah | 220 | 0.1 | 2.98 | $114,290 | $110,960 |
| New Mexico | 210 | 0.2 | 5.64 | $119,020 | $114,930 |
| Oregon | 200 | 0.1 | 2.27 | $97,720 | $86,140 |
| Texas | 180 | 0.0 | 0.30 | $107,330 | $101,190 |
| Montana | 150 | 0.3 | 6.55 | $97,980 | $99,830 |
| Wyoming | 150 | 0.5 | 12.05 | $115,040 | $113,870 |
| Virginia | 130 | 0.0 | 0.71 | $102,960 | $98,690 |
| Ohio | 110 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $99,290 | $91,500 |
| Idaho | 100 | 0.1 | 2.81 | $101,450 | $104,220 |
| Tennessee | 100 | 0.0 | 0.67 | $106,250 | $98,980 |
| Indiana | 90 | 0.0 | 0.67 | $118,020 | $110,590 |
| Alabama | 80 | 0.0 | 0.90 | $100,700 | $101,480 |
| Michigan | 80 | 0.0 | 0.42 | $114,870 | $125,600 |
| Minnesota | 60 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $98,790 | $94,190 |
| Florida | 50 | 0.0 | 0.13 | $109,780 | $116,430 |
| Maryland | 50 | 0.0 | 0.46 | $91,380 | $93,360 |
| South Dakota | 30 | 0.1 | 1.58 | $99,720 | $105,170 |
| Wisconsin | 30 | 0.0 | 0.25 | $111,690 | $97,610 |
| Kentucky | n/p | n/p | n/p | $107,100 | $102,910 |
| New York | n/p | n/p | n/p | $93,810 | $79,990 |
| Oklahoma | n/p | n/p | n/p | $115,040 | $103,510 |
| Pennsylvania | n/p | n/p | n/p | $100,230 | $89,300 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers stands number 730 by employment and number 120 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Architecture and Engineering Occupations, the group median wage is $96,690 across 36 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 4% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.3% of the group's 2,567,220 jobs. In 16 of the 27 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $101,020, 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
Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO is the largest metro employer with 510 jobs, 7.5% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 26 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO | 510 | n/p | n/p |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 340 | n/p | n/p |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 340 | $130,090 | $142,520 |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ | 230 | $126,150 | $110,540 |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA | 200 | $146,300 | $158,760 |
| Salt Lake City-Murray, UT | 170 | $115,970 | $115,270 |
| Tucson, AZ | 150 | $126,780 | $107,330 |
| Anchorage, AK | 130 | $134,950 | $99,420 |
| Beckley, WV | 110 | $88,360 | $78,880 |
| Billings, MT | 70 | $99,970 | $99,830 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
Budget arithmetic on the median: $8,418 a month before tax, $3,885 biweekly, $1,943 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($81,040) to the 75th ($129,860) is worth $48,820 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.
To place a real offer: a salary of $111,122 would sit between the median ($101,020) and the 75th percentile ($129,860), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $81,040, is $19,980 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.
Related occupations in Architecture and Engineering Occupations
Sibling occupations in Architecture and Engineering Occupations: Surveying and Mapping Technicians, Surveyors, Mechanical Drafters, Environmental Engineers, Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors. Medians there are computed identically, so the comparison is apples to apples; the full set lives on the Careers hub.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers make an hour?
The median hourly wage is $48.57, and the mean hourly wage is $52.37, from the May 2024 OEWS estimates. Annual figures for Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers use the survey's 2,080-hour year where a conversion is needed, which is how the $101,020 annual median and the hourly figures reconcile.
Which state pays Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers the most?
California, with a median annual wage of $142,520 across 780 jobs. The full state table on this page ranks every publishing state by employment and shows median and mean side by side.
How big is the Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers workforce?
6,770 wage and salary workers in May 2024, 0.00% of U.S. employment in the survey. Employment concentrates most in Alaska by location quotient (24.77).
How current is this Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers salary data?
These are the May 2024 OEWS estimates behind the $101,020 median and the 6,770 job count on this page, released by BLS on April 2, 2025 and downloaded on November 5, 2026. OEWS is an employer survey, so those figures describe wages actually paid in this occupation, not advertised ranges.