CNC Machinist and Aerospace Welder Salary 2026

Pay bands by series and rung in 2026

Six bands, each anchored to the federal series that best matches the rung and filled in with employer-posted ranges where BLS does not split the title by level. The level ladders are real base bands from public job feeds, quoted by employer type and state because that is how the pay-transparency law makes them public; they are not medians and they are not offers.

Sources: BLS OEWS May 2025 national, state and industry estimates for SOC 51-4041, 51-9161, 51-4121, 51-4111 and 51-1011 (OEWS query system, retrieved September 15, 2026); BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook 2025-35; ZipRecruiter national pages dated September 15, 2026; Indeed pages dated September 7, 2026; Payscale September 1, 2026; public Greenhouse and Ashby job feeds read September 15, 2026.

Why the same title pays $49,183 on one site and $64,140 on another

ZipRecruiter’s $49,183 CNC machinist average and $46,302 aerospace welder average (both September 15, 2026) sit $9,500 to $18,000 under the federal medians because the aggregators are averaging posted bands, and posted bands are dominated by job shops, staffing firms and entry seats; ZipRecruiter’s own aerospace CNC page returns the identical $49,183, which tells you the string match is doing nothing. Indeed’s $28.24/hr (September 7, 2026) lands exactly on the BLS hourly median of $28.24 because it is built from 35,200 postings rather than a handful of profiles; Payscale’s $20.65/hr aerospace welder rate rests on 33 profiles. Use the federal industry cut for the median, the employer ladders for the top of the band, and the aggregators only as a floor.

What industry, level, certification and shift add on top of base

On this ladder the employer’s NAICS code and the level number move pay more than the title does. A machinist moving from a machine shop to an aerospace plant changes the federal median by $8,480; a machinist moving from level 1 to level 5 at a launch-vehicle manufacturer roughly doubles the hourly base. The six premiums below are each sourced to a federal cut, a published credential fee or a posted range.

The compounding is the point. A machinist at the $56,640 machine-shop median who moves to an aerospace plant reaches $64,140 on federal data alone; clear the level 4 bar there and the posted floor is $36.00/hr, or $74,880, with the 90th percentile at $95,330. Add a programming scope and the band becomes $45.50-$63.00/hr. For the welder, D17.1 qualification is the gate to the level 4-5 band at $36.00-$51.00/hr and to the CWI inspector ladder above it. The credentials are cheap; the experience they certify is what the employer is buying.

Regional and industry spread

Machinist and welder pay follows the plants. Washington, Connecticut and Massachusetts medians are set by airframe and jet-engine employers under union contracts; Texas has the largest machinist and welder headcounts in the country and medians near the national figure; the Space Coast and Huntsville pay below the national median on the state table while the launch employers there post well above it. State figures are BLS OEWS May 2025, cross-industry, retrieved September 15, 2026.

The volume base is still the Midwest: Michigan has 20,350 machinists at a $52,360 median, Ohio 17,110 at $57,940 and 21,250 CNC operators at $49,160, Illinois 16,520 at $58,520 and Wisconsin 12,700 at $59,110 (OEWS May 2025). Those are the shops the aerospace and defense plants recruit from, and the $14,000 to $15,000 gap between a Michigan machinist and a Washington or Massachusetts one is the relocation premium a reindustrialization employer is competing against. A Texas machinist at $59,180 and a California one at $57,190 are $2,000 apart on the state table; the same machinist at level 2 versus level 5 at a Hawthorne launch site is $31,000 apart at the floor of the posted ladder ($26.00 against $41.00/hr).

Where CNC machinist and aerospace welder pay is heading

The federal projections are flat and the openings are not. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects machinists to grow 1% and tool and die makers to decline 9% over 2025–35, with about 30,400 openings a year across the two, and welders to grow 2% with about 40,300 openings a year, most from replacement. O*NET’s 2024–34 read for welders is the same: 1% to 2% growth and 45,600 openings. Nearly every opening on a 288,300-job base is a retirement, and the aerospace cut is competing for the same replacement pool as the machine shops that supply it.

The contract cycle reset the ceiling. The IAM 751 agreement ratified November 4, 2024 carried a 38% general wage increase (13%, 9%, 9%, 7%) that compounds to 43.65% over four years, and Boeing said average machinist pay would reach $119,309 by the end of it (CNBC, November 4, 2024); the May 2025 OEWS already shows the first step in Washington’s $107,920 CNC operator median and $101,110 machinist 90th percentile. Non-union space employers price against that: the level 5 ceiling of $51.00 in California and $52.00 in Washington on postings retrieved September 15, 2026 is $106,000 to $108,000 at straight time before the overtime those postings say to expect.

The ladders are getting longer, not just higher. Employer feeds read September 15, 2026 show the launch-vehicle manufacturer posting separate level 1-3 and level 4-5 reqs for the same machinist and welder titles plus a CNC technical trainer at $95,000-$120,000; the 3D-printed-rocket manufacturer posts I, II, senior and specialist rungs with weld technical specialist II at $40.40-$60.60/hr. A trade that used to top out at journeyman now has a five-rung published ladder, and the ZipRecruiter $49,183 average describes rung one.

What this means for hiring machinists and welders

For employers, the practical read is that the title is mispriced by the aggregators and the federal cut is the right anchor. An offer built on ZipRecruiter’s $49,183 will not clear a five-axis machinist at any aerospace plant, where the OEWS median is $64,140 and the 75th percentile $77,570; an offer built on the national 90th of $80,010 still sits under the posted level 4 floor of $36.00/hr in Hawthorne once shift and overtime are added. Write the req to a level, name the material and tolerance, state whether AWS D17.1 qualification or NIMS credentials are required or preferred, and post the base band even in Texas where the law does not make you, because your California competitors already have. Manufacturing and aerospace search is covered on aerospace and defense manufacturing recruiters and manufacturing recruiters; the engineering seats above the shop floor are on weld engineer, NDT inspector, tooling engineer and manufacturing engineer.

For professionals, the levers are industry, level and paper, in that order. Moving from a machine shop at $56,640 to an aerospace plant is worth $7,500 on the median before any promotion; clearing the 8-year experience bar for level 4-5 is worth $13.00-$18.00/hr on the posted ladders; a D17.1 qualification is the gate to the welder’s top band and the CWI endorsement behind it costs $445 and opens a $42.64-$63.96/hr inspector track. For volume ramps at a new plant or launch site, iRecruit runs the trades and technician layer through embedded recruiting support and RPO alongside the engineering search; the firm rankings are on best aerospace and defense recruiters and best manufacturing recruiters.

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