Nuclear Power Reactor Operators Salary and Pay
How much do Nuclear Power Reactor Operators make?
Nuclear Power Reactor Operators pay a median of $122,610 a year in the BLS May 2024 survey, with a mean of $122,830 across 5,720 counted jobs. Half of all workers in the occupation earn between $107,170 and $131,520.
What Nuclear Power Reactor Operators actually pay, from the federal wage survey: a $122,610 median, the full percentile ladder, every state's table, and the metros where the jobs and the money sit, on one page.
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 | $99,300 | $47.74 |
| 25th percentile | $107,170 | $51.52 |
| Median (50th) | $122,610 | $58.95 |
| 75th percentile | $131,520 | $63.23 |
| 90th percentile | $152,690 | $73.41 |
A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Nuclear Power Reactor Operators ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $107,170. 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 5,720 people in May 2024, 0.00% of every job BLS counted. Illinois is the largest employer at 460 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 19.6% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in South Carolina, whose location quotient of 3.79 says this work is 3.79 times as dense there as it is nationwide.
The spread matters as much as the center. Earners at the 90th percentile make $152,690, which is 1.5 times the $99,300 at the 10th, a difference of $53,390 annually. Because the mean wage ($122,830) sits above the median ($122,610), a typical offer should be judged against the median and the 25th to 75th percentile band, not the mean.
Pay by state
Every state with a publishable estimate is in this table, 6 of them, sorted by jobs. The pay leader by median is New York at $131,520; the jobs leader is Illinois:
| State | Employment | Jobs per 1,000 | Location quotient | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 460 | 0.1 | 2.05 | n/p | n/p |
| North Carolina | 340 | 0.1 | 1.85 | $113,850 | $107,200 |
| South Carolina | 320 | 0.1 | 3.79 | $115,160 | $112,070 |
| New York | 280 | 0.0 | 0.79 | $139,850 | $131,520 |
| Ohio | 150 | 0.0 | 0.71 | $117,030 | $124,030 |
| Nebraska | 80 | 0.1 | 2.12 | $112,830 | $111,300 |
The occupation in context
Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Nuclear Power Reactor Operators stands number 749 by employment and number 67 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Production Occupations, the group median wage is $46,020 across 105 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 166% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.1% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 2 of the 5 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $122,610, 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
Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC is the largest metro employer with n/p jobs. Employment rank and pay rank are different lists: the second table re-sorts metros with at least 500 jobs in this occupation by mean pay, the floor keeping a handful of workers from posing as a market.
Largest metro employers
| Metropolitan area | Employment | Mean annual | Median annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC | n/p | $116,010 | $111,210 |
What the median pay looks like as a budget
The median Nuclear Power Reactor Operators paycheck, gross, is $4,716 every two weeks on an annual $122,610, which is $10,218 a month and $2,358 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($107,170) to the 75th ($131,520) is worth $24,350 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. Gross is a starting point, not a budget: the paycheck calculator nets it down by state, an offer comparison lives in the salary calculator, and the raise vs inflation calculator separates a real raise from a nominal one.
To place a real offer: a salary of $134,871 would sit between the median ($122,610) and the 75th percentile ($131,520), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $107,170, is $15,440 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.
Related occupations in Production Occupations
Sibling occupations in Production Occupations: Model Makers, Metal and Plastic, Fabric and Apparel Patternmakers, Sewers, Hand, Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic, Model Makers, Wood, Timing Device Assemblers and Adjusters. 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 Nuclear Power Reactor Operators make?
The median annual wage is $122,610 and the mean is $122,830 in the BLS OEWS May 2024 estimates. The middle half of workers earn between $107,170 and $131,520 a year.
Which state pays Nuclear Power Reactor Operators the most?
By median annual wage, New York leads the state table at $131,520, based on 280 jobs in that state. By mean wage and by headcount the leaders can differ, so the state table on this page shows all three measures side by side.
How many Nuclear Power Reactor Operators are there in the United States?
BLS counted 5,720 wage and salary workers in this occupation in May 2024, 0.00% of all U.S. employment in the survey. The largest state employer is Illinois with 460 jobs.
What do the OEWS percentiles mean for Nuclear Power Reactor Operators?
They mark points in this occupation's pay distribution. One worker in ten earns $99,300 or less and one in ten earns $152,690 or more; the median, $122,610, is the wage of the worker exactly in the middle of the 5,720 counted jobs.