Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other
What the pay figures show
- A job board will not tell you this about this job. The best headline number is Maine, at $107,060. State taxes differ, so Washington leaves you more. Prices differ too, so New Mexico leaves you better off again — $84,921 once levelled out. Moving for the biggest salary can leave you worse off.
- Wage data for engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other places Maine first at $107,060. That position is not robust: state income tax alone reorders it to Washington, and regional price parity reorders it again to New Mexico at $84,921. Because published comparisons almost universally stop at the nominal median, the state that appears best for this occupation is routinely not the state where a worker's income goes furthest.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$78,350
People doing it
59,930
Highest paid
$107,060
ME
Best off, really
$84,921
NM, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$47,030
Highest tenth
$118,330
Lowest, really
$44,569
VT
States with data
49
National average
$80,960
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.39%
NM, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $44,569 up to $84,921.
- Only 59,930 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 49 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $78,350. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Maine pays most.
- The nominal spread for engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $44,569 to $84,921, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- National employment in engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other is 59,930. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other in 49 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $47,030 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $78,350 |
| Top tenth earn over | $118,330 |
| This salary | $78,350 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other
The national median for this job
$78,350around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $47,030 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $78,350 |
| Top tenth | $118,330 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Engineering Technologists and Technicians, Except Drafters, All Other, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Vermont · $52,770 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Maine · $107,060 |
| Spread | $54,290 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $73,860 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $76,007 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| NM | $101,750 | $76,756 | $84,921 |
| ME | $107,060 | $78,134 | $80,470 |
| NV | $93,670 | $74,727 | $77,054 |
| IN | $88,880 | $68,765 | $74,595 |
| ND | $80,990 | $65,486 | $73,936 |
| WA | $99,720 | $78,983 | $72,754 |
| VA | $98,410 | $73,163 | $72,620 |
| MD | $99,970 | $74,774 | $71,922 |
| WY | $79,440 | $64,716 | $71,236 |
| OK | $81,330 | $62,886 | $71,230 |
| RI | $94,570 | $72,220 | $71,215 |
| AK | $89,810 | $72,011 | $70,797 |
| MS | $79,350 | $61,571 | $70,534 |
| WV | $81,330 | $63,210 | $70,412 |
| OH | $77,590 | $61,997 | $67,526 |
| SC | $80,540 | $62,466 | $67,040 |
| AL | $74,650 | $58,158 | $64,642 |
| UT | $79,370 | $61,135 | $64,351 |
| AR | $68,060 | $54,651 | $63,174 |
| MN | $81,290 | $62,013 | $63,011 |
| WI | $74,940 | $58,556 | $62,898 |
| TX | $73,860 | $60,791 | $62,558 |
| MO | $72,320 | $57,245 | $62,385 |
| IL | $79,800 | $61,164 | $61,872 |
| MI | $73,960 | $57,968 | $61,548 |
| NJ | $87,450 | $66,970 | $61,507 |
| HI | $90,040 | $66,773 | $61,480 |
| NC | $72,070 | $57,164 | $60,723 |
| NH | $76,720 | $62,803 | $59,616 |
| NE | $67,200 | $53,751 | $59,475 |
| CO | $76,110 | $59,733 | $58,919 |
| DE | $75,780 | $58,371 | $58,810 |
| MT | $65,730 | $52,641 | $58,332 |
| KY | $65,660 | $52,757 | $58,316 |
| IA | $63,120 | $51,110 | $57,578 |
| ID | $65,790 | $52,409 | $57,324 |
| PA | $68,930 | $55,206 | $56,622 |
| FL | $70,500 | $58,427 | $56,477 |
| CT | $74,870 | $58,133 | $56,065 |
| GA | $68,370 | $54,115 | $55,963 |
| CA | $80,480 | $62,055 | $55,120 |
| LA | $58,960 | $48,172 | $54,527 |
| OR | $76,960 | $56,788 | $54,227 |
| KS | $61,710 | $48,609 | $54,031 |
| TN | $58,700 | $49,345 | $53,338 |
| MA | $67,450 | $53,229 | $49,177 |
| AZ | $59,580 | $48,966 | $48,430 |
| NY | $65,530 | $51,892 | $48,215 |
| VT | $52,770 | $43,069 | $44,569 |
Sources and assumptions
- These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $78,350 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Washington keeps the most at $78,983.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Vermont sits at the bottom on $44,569.
- All wage figures for engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $78,350. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
- The household modeled for engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Washington retains the most, $78,983. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to engineering technologists and technicians, except drafters, all other uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Vermont at $44,569. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Vermont anchors the bottom at $44,569 — and the two source series are dated independently.