CNC Machinist Pay in California: What Shops Are Actually Posting

I already went through every job on the board and pulled the pay range out of the ad. That's the full pay breakdown, if you haven't seen it.

This is the California number, pulled out on its own. It's the highest posted pay of any state we track, and it's not close.

The number

40 California postings on the board name a pay range. The middle of that range is $40.00 an hour.

That's the highest state median on the board, about $6.50 above the $33.50 median across every state.

How it stacks up

Illinois is next at $39.25. New Jersey is third at $38.00. After that the gap widens fast — Massachusetts at $35.00, Michigan at $32.50.

At the other end, Minnesota posts a $25.77 median. California runs $14.23 an hour above it — on paper, close to $30,000 a year on a full-time schedule.

I wouldn't read that as "move to California." A dollar goes a lot further in Minnesota than it does in most of California, and that gap isn't in this data. Read it as what the market will actually pay for CNC work here, not as financial advice.

Top of market

These are the highest posted ranges on the California board right now. Real ads, real shops:

$50–$65/hr — Synkronos, Programmer
$47–$59/hr — Atomic Machines, Machinist
$45–$58/hr — Synkronos, Setup
$45–$55/hr — Ricaurte Precision, Programmer
$35–$60/hr — Formidable Engineering, Programmer

Five of the highest-paying ads on the entire board, and every one of them is in California. Programming and setup work leads the list, same as it does everywhere else — California just pays more for it.

Why California runs higher

I don't have a clean single reason, and I'd rather say that than guess at one. Some of it is almost certainly cost of living catching up with pay. Some of it is the aerospace and defense work concentrated here, which tends to post higher ranges anywhere it shows up. I can't split those apart from this data.

What I can tell you is the number holds up across 40 postings, not two or three outliers pulling an average around.

What I'd do with this

If you're a machinist in California: $40.00 is the middle of the market, not the ceiling. If you're being offered less than that for CNC work, especially programming or setup, ask why.

If you're a shop in California trying to fill a seat: check your range against $40.00 before you check anything else. The shops at the top of this list are pulling from the same labor pool you are, and they're not shy about what they're paying for it.

How I got this number

Same data as the full board pay breakdown: every live job posting on hireCNC, read directly for the pay range in the ad, current as of August 2026. 40 California postings named a figure. Every number here is the midpoint of a posted range.

Last checked: August 2026. Re-run quarterly.