Avionics Engineer Salary 2026: Flight Hardware, Harness and Integration Pay

Avionics engineer pay bands by level in 2026

The federal series set the distribution; the employer boards fill in the titles and levels BLS does not code. Each band names its source and state, because the same title pays differently in Hawthorne, Long Beach, Costa Mesa, Redmond, and McHenry, Mississippi, and because base and total compensation are reported differently from one board to the next.

Sources: BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates for SOC 17-2071, 17-2072, and 17-2011 with percentiles via O*NET OnLine; BLS OEWS May 2025 national industry-specific and state estimates via the data.bls.gov OEWS query system (extracted September 15, 2026); employer job postings read via the Greenhouse public job board API on September 15, 2026 for a launch and satellite manufacturer, a launch vehicle and spacecraft manufacturer, a 3D-printed launch vehicle manufacturer, and a defense-tech manufacturer, and via the Ashby public posting API for an autonomous drone manufacturer; ZipRecruiter salary page as of September 15, 2026; Indeed Career Explorer updated September 7, 2026; Salary.com posting benchmark as of September 1, 2026; Payscale page updated May 19, 2026; BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook 2025-35 projections.

Why the avionics engineer aggregators disagree by $60,000

Four aggregators, four answers for the same title, all retrieved in September 2026: Salary.com reports a $81,536 median with a $74,008–$91,674 typical range (September 1, 2026); Payscale’s self-reported average is $105,805 across 65 profiles (May 19, 2026); ZipRecruiter averages $111,304 with an $87,500–$136,500 middle band and $158,000 at the 90th percentile (September 15, 2026); and Indeed reports $141,885 across 674 salaries from postings, with Fort Worth at $183,693, Long Beach at $176,643, and Hawthorne at $163,315 (September 7, 2026). The spread is a title-matching problem. Salary.com’s string catches avionics technician and bench-repair work at MRO shops and airlines; Indeed’s catches the launch, satellite, and defense-tech postings that publish six-figure ranges by law in California, Washington, and Colorado. The BLS industry cut, $141,160 for electrical engineers in aerospace manufacturing, sits almost exactly on Indeed’s figure, which is the tell for which aggregator is measuring the engineering seat rather than the technician seat.

What moves an avionics engineer salary

Level explains most of the spread on this page, but six other factors separate two avionics engineers with the same years of experience. Each one below is priced from a federal table or an employer-published range, not from an aggregator estimate.

The factors stack. A senior avionics engineer on a classified satellite program in California with FPGA depth is priced off a $191,000–$253,000 band plus a 10 percent clearance differential plus equity; the same years of experience on an uncleared senior electrical seat at its Colorado plants are priced off $126,000–$167,000 base. Neither is mispriced. They are different jobs that happen to share a title, and the avionics engineer req should say which one it is before it names a number.

Avionics engineer salary by state and site

Avionics hiring concentrates where vehicles, satellites, and autonomous systems are built and tested. Each cell pairs BLS OEWS May 2025 state medians for electrical engineers (17-2071) and aerospace engineers (17-2011) with the employer-published base ranges we read for that state on September 15, 2026.

Two patterns. Where a state requires pay disclosure, the employer bands run well above the BLS state median for the same code, because the postings are concentrated at the top of the industry and the median is not. Where it does not, Texas above all, the only usable benchmarks are the same employer’s disclosed bands in California and Washington for the same level, and the plant-state discount seen in Ohio and Mississippi, roughly $18,000 in Ohio and $30,000–$33,000 in Mississippi at the floor of each band.

Where avionics demand is heading

The federal projections are strong for every series avionics draws on. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects electrical and electronics engineers to grow 8 percent from 2025 to 2035, adding 23,400 jobs with about 16,300 openings a year from growth and replacement, and aerospace engineers to grow 8 percent, adding 5,700 jobs with about 3,800 openings a year, both much faster than the all-occupation average. O*NET’s 2024–34 table puts electrical engineers alone at about 11,700 openings a year.

The demand is visible on the boards. On September 15, 2026 a launch and satellite manufacturer listed 36 reqs with avionics in the title and 26 more titled electrical engineer; a launch vehicle and spacecraft manufacturer listed 21 and 16; a 3D-printed launch vehicle manufacturer 19 and 4; and a defense-tech manufacturer 6 avionics-titled reqs against 72 titled electrical engineer across drones, space, sensors, weapons, maritime, and its Ohio and Mississippi plants. The defense-tech pattern matters: that employer buys avionics talent under the electrical engineer title with a program suffix, which is why an avionics search that only matches the word avionics misses most of the market.

Pay has moved with the reqs. The May 2025 electrical engineer median of $120,630 compares with the $125,040 combined electrical and electronics figure the Outlook Handbook now carries as its 2025 quick fact, and the aerospace-industry cut at $141,160 is where the new-entrant boards have set their Level II ceilings. The wide senior band, $140,000–$222,000 across three boards, is the market’s way of saying it will pay a premium for an engineer who has already flown hardware and does not need to be taught the qualification cycle.

Reading these numbers before you write an offer

Three rules follow from the data. First, write the level before the number: every board on this page prices Level I, Level II, senior, staff, and principal as separate bands with as much as $59,000 between adjacent ceilings, and a req that says avionics engineer without a level will draw candidates from all five. Second, name the code you are benchmarking against. An avionics req priced off the cross-industry electrical engineer median of $120,630 will lose to the same req priced off the aerospace cut at $141,160 or the Indeed posting average of $141,885, because that is what the candidate’s other offers are built on. Third, treat aggregator averages as a range check, not a market rate; the Salary.com figure of $81,536 is a technician number wearing an engineer title.

For employers standing up a new avionics group at a factory, launch site, or drone plant, the practical sequence is to publish the same three-step ladder the incumbents publish, quantify clearance and equity separately so the base can be compared cleanly, and expect the senior step to be where searches stall. iRecruit is building candidate density across avionics, power electronics, and avionics test roles for aerospace and defense manufacturers ahead of that demand, from Level I board designers through principal engineers, and can run the search as a retained engagement or as embedded recruiting support inside your team.

For the hiring side of this market, see the Defense Tech Recruiters practice.