Aug 25, 2026 ● Jon House
CNC Machinist Pay: What Shops Are Actually Posting
Most pay pages you’ll find are built the same way. Somebody takes a government average, rounds it off, and writes a thousand words around it.
I run a job board for machinists. So I did something simpler: I went through the job archive and pulled the pay range out of the ads.
I reviewed two years of manually generated hireCNC postings. After removing duplicate export rows and likely reposts, the dataset contained 906 postings published from September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026. Of those, 674 had a usable advertised pay range after strict cleaning.
Data through September 29, 2026. We re-run this analysis periodically and change the figures when they move.
The short answer
Across the full archive sample, the median midpoint of advertised pay ranges was $33.50 an hour.
Looking only at the latest 12 months, the median was $34.00. The close 12- and 24-month results are a useful stability check.
This is job-posting data, not a wage survey. It shows what employers advertised while actively recruiting on hireCNC. It does not show final offers, incumbent wages, overtime, bonuses, shift premiums, benefits, or every CNC job in the market.
What the jump between jobs is actually worth
The clearest pattern in the archive is the increase in posted pay as a role takes on more responsibility for the machining process.
| Responsibility level | Postings with usable pay | Median midpoint | Annualized at 2,080 hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | 54 | $24.25 | $50,440 |
| Setup | 39 | $33.50 | $69,680 |
| Programmer | 210 | $38.50 | $80,080 |
Operator to setup is $9.25 an hour. Setup to programmer is another $5.00. Put together, that is $14.25 an hour, or $29,640 over a 2,080-hour year.
That is not a guaranteed raise for any individual machinist. Geography, industry, shift, machine complexity, materials, tolerances, and the difference between at-the-control and offline CAM programming can all change the number. But the archive does show a meaningful distinction between operating an established process, independently setting it up, and defining it through programming.
As Nate Bigelow, General Manager at hireCNC, puts it: “A setup machinist is hands-on at the machine, setting it up to effectively make the part.” In his recruiting work, the move from operator to setup usually involves tooling, workholding, material preparation, code reading, and prove-out support. A programmer goes further by defining the complete manufacturing process and creating the program from start to finish.
Pay by role tag
The table below uses the site’s occupational tags. Unlike the responsibility ladder above, these rows overlap: one posting can carry more than one tag and appear in more than one row.
| Occupational tag | Postings with usable pay | Median midpoint |
|---|---|---|
| CNC machinist | 411 | $33.50 |
| CNC operator | 136 | $28.50 |
| CNC setup | 106 | $34.00 |
| CNC mill machinist | 55 | $33.88 |
| CNC lathe machinist | 47 | $33.00 |
| CNC Swiss machinist | 33 | $32.00 |
| CNC programmer | 205 | $38.50 |
| 5-axis CNC machinist | 67 | $35.00 |
The Swiss result deserves caution. A $32.00 median in 33 postings does not prove that Swiss expertise lacks a premium. Shops may incorporate that premium into a combined programmer/setup range, and advertised ranges can miss negotiated compensation. Treat it as a useful industry question, not a final conclusion.
See the CNC programmer pay breakdown, the setup machinist pay breakdown, the mill pay breakdown, and the Swiss pay breakdown.
A related question—whether years of experience determines pay at all—is covered in our analysis of a real 800-comment machinist discussion.
Want to see what is open right now? Browse CNC operator jobs, CNC mill machinist jobs, CNC lathe machinist jobs, CNC Swiss machinist jobs, or CNC programmer jobs.
What about state pay?
The archive has enough pay data to calculate state-level medians, but the mix of operator, setup, programmer, engineering, and management roles is different in every state. That makes a simple state ranking easy to overread.
I report state cuts only when at least 10 postings contain usable pay, and I show the sample size beside every result. Even then, use the table as a directional recruiting benchmark—not a list of where machinists should move or proof that one state pays better than another.
If you are hiring or looking in California, I broke that market out further in the California CNC pay analysis.
If large-part CNC and naval shipbuilding work is more your speed, here is what Newport News Shipbuilding has been advertising.
How this compares to the government figure
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median machinist at $58,750 a year as of May 2025—about $28.25 an hour on a 2,080-hour work year. Machinists and tool and die makers together come in at $28.66 an hour.
The hireCNC archive midpoint is $33.50. That is roughly 19% higher.
These are different measures. BLS estimates what employed machinists earn across the economy. hireCNC measures the midpoint of ranges advertised by employers recruiting on a specialized CNC job board. The comparison may reflect an active-hiring price, a different mix of roles, or the specialized nature of the site; it is not proof of a market premium.
BLS also splits machinists from tool and die makers in the detailed outlook. Tool and die making is projected to decline 9% from 2025 to 2035, while machinist employment is projected to grow about 1%. Blend the two together and the headline projection is a 1% decline. Across both occupations, BLS expects about 30,400 openings per year on average, mostly from retirements and people leaving the trade.
Three quarters of postings name a number. Post the number.
After duplicate and repost cleaning, 674 of 906 postings—74.4%—contained a usable pay range.
That matters because vague pay language can suppress response. Nate’s blunt version is: “Machinists read ‘competitive pay’ as low or bad pay.” A real range works best when the employer also explains which skills qualify somebody for the top of it.
Benefits still matter, especially health-plan cost, paid time off, retirement contributions, and shift structure. But they rarely repair a base wage that is far below the market. As Nate says, “Four weeks of PTO with a much lower wage never works.” See what machinists said they actually want from a benefits package.
If you are a machinist, ask the number in the first conversation—not the third. And when you get to the interview, these are the questions shops actually ask.
What I’d do with this page
If you’re looking: use the responsibility ladder and the role-tag table as benchmarks, not promises. Match the role definition to what you actually do, then compare it with the ranges on current openings in your market.
If you’re hiring: define whether you need an operator, setup machinist, programmer, or a true combination role. Post a real range and explain what earns the top of it. If qualified people are not responding, silence is information.
How I got these numbers
The source was the hireCNC Job administration archive export retrieved September 29, 2026. I included manually generated jobs originally published from September 29, 2024 through September 29, 2026, including historical workflow states.
- The export contained 925 rows representing 914 unique job IDs. I removed 11 repeated export rows.
- When normalized organization, title, and location matched, I retained only the most recent original posting. The final cohort contained 906 postings.
- Both minimum and maximum compensation had to be present. Equal minimum and maximum figures remained valid exact rates.
- I used USD only, kept hourly values as stated, divided annual pay by 2,080, and excluded weekly pay.
- Each reported figure is the median of the normalized midpoint of the advertised range.
- I excluded normalized midpoints below $10 or above $150 per hour.
- I excluded 23 clearly miscoded or open-ended records, including $51–$9,999.99 placeholders and hourly/annual unit reversals.
- For the responsibility ladder, I assigned postings once: programmer first, otherwise setup, otherwise operator.
Advertised ranges are not final offers and may omit overtime, bonuses, shift premiums, per diem, benefits, and negotiated compensation. hireCNC is a specialized job board, so this is not a census of all machinist employment.
Analysis by: Jon House, Founder, hireCNC
Recruiting-market commentary: Nate Bigelow, General Manager
Article: CNC Machinist Pay: What Shops Are Actually Posting
Publisher: hireCNC
Published: August 25, 2026
Data last refreshed: September 29, 2026
URL: /blog/job-market/cnc-machinist-pay
Publications may reproduce the career-ladder chart with attribution to hireCNC and a link to this article.
