Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators 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 Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $44,740. 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

With 45,680 jobs nationally, Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators make up 0.03% of U.S. employment as BLS measured it in May 2024. The map is uneven: Texas alone holds 5,140 of those jobs, the top three states hold 27.0%, and the deepest concentration sits in New Mexico (location quotient 4.14, where 1.00 is the national average). A quotient above 2 usually signals a local industry cluster rather than evenly spread demand.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $52,080 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($90,110) is 2.4 times the 10th percentile ($38,030), a gap of $52,080 a year. The mean of $58,660 sitting above the median of $51,650 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

Hawaii posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $108,570, and Texas the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators stands number 404 by employment and number 500 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Construction and Extraction Occupations, the group median wage is $54,660 across 60 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 6% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.7% of the group's 6,361,730 jobs. In 31 of the 50 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $51,650, 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 3,450 jobs, 7.6% 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, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $46,620 a year, against $75,980 in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ. 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 $51,650 works out to $4,304 a month before taxes, $1,987 per biweekly paycheck, and $993 a week. Moving from the 25th percentile ($44,740) to the 75th ($66,060) is worth $21,320 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 $56,815 would sit between the median ($51,650) and the 75th percentile ($66,060), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $44,740, is $6,910 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Construction and Extraction Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Brickmasons and Blockmasons, Hazardous Materials Removal Workers, Roustabouts, Oil and Gas, Service Unit Operators, Oil and Gas, Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, Tile and Stone Setters. The full directory is on the Careers hub.