Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. Illinois pays this job best, at $115,780. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $96,387 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for stationary engineers and boiler operators is also the real leader: Illinois at $115,780, holding through tax and through price deflation to $96,387. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$78,620
People doing it
28,250
Highest paid
$115,780
IL
Best off, really
$96,387
WY, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$50,590
Highest tenth
$125,390
Lowest, really
$44,712
LA
States with data
51
National average
$83,960
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
90.85%
WY, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $44,712 to $96,387.
- Just 28,250 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
- Coverage is complete — all 51 jurisdictions publish this, on a middle wage of $78,620. Nothing is missing.
- Geographic dispersion in stationary engineers and boiler operators is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $44,712 to $96,387 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
- 28,250 are employed nationally in stationary engineers and boiler operators — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
- Coverage for stationary engineers and boiler operators is complete at 51 jurisdictions. No suppression applies, so the highest and lowest figures above are genuinely the national extremes.
Pay band: Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $50,590 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $78,620 |
| Top tenth earn over | $125,390 |
| This salary | $78,620 |
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 Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
The national median for this job
$78,620around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $50,590 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $78,620 |
| Top tenth | $125,390 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Louisiana · $47,750 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Illinois · $115,780 |
| Spread | $68,030 |
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 | $63,810 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $65,665 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $111,920 | $87,566 | $96,387 |
| IL | $115,780 | $84,695 | $85,676 |
| AK | $88,330 | $70,970 | $69,774 |
| HI | $103,400 | $75,157 | $69,199 |
| CT | $94,870 | $71,103 | $68,574 |
| MI | $82,800 | $63,812 | $67,752 |
| WA | $91,530 | $73,221 | $67,447 |
| MT | $77,690 | $60,456 | $66,992 |
| NV | $79,110 | $64,484 | $66,492 |
| OH | $75,470 | $60,564 | $65,965 |
| NY | $94,070 | $70,498 | $65,503 |
| NM | $74,480 | $58,892 | $65,156 |
| TN | $72,470 | $59,813 | $64,652 |
| SD | $68,090 | $56,731 | $64,398 |
| ND | $66,760 | $55,753 | $62,947 |
| MD | $85,240 | $65,111 | $62,628 |
| MO | $72,620 | $57,442 | $62,599 |
| UT | $76,490 | $59,237 | $62,353 |
| CO | $81,310 | $63,162 | $62,301 |
| SC | $72,650 | $57,438 | $61,644 |
| OK | $68,450 | $54,405 | $61,623 |
| IA | $67,450 | $54,330 | $61,205 |
| DC | $90,470 | $67,754 | $61,148 |
| CA | $90,650 | $68,264 | $60,635 |
| DE | $77,630 | $59,550 | $59,998 |
| AZ | $75,410 | $60,398 | $59,738 |
| MN | $75,850 | $58,556 | $59,498 |
| PA | $72,900 | $57,877 | $59,361 |
| KY | $66,770 | $53,583 | $59,229 |
| IN | $67,560 | $54,395 | $59,007 |
| NE | $64,930 | $52,100 | $57,649 |
| GA | $70,640 | $55,599 | $57,497 |
| MA | $80,800 | $61,953 | $57,238 |
| VT | $68,400 | $54,545 | $56,445 |
| KS | $64,490 | $50,688 | $56,342 |
| ID | $64,460 | $51,411 | $56,232 |
| NJ | $76,560 | $60,003 | $55,108 |
| TX | $63,810 | $53,451 | $55,005 |
| AR | $58,000 | $47,096 | $54,441 |
| WI | $61,170 | $49,153 | $52,798 |
| FL | $65,040 | $54,440 | $52,623 |
| NH | $66,180 | $55,356 | $52,547 |
| NC | $60,860 | $49,161 | $52,222 |
| ME | $62,910 | $49,802 | $51,291 |
| VA | $64,150 | $50,797 | $50,419 |
| RI | $63,330 | $51,111 | $50,399 |
| MS | $53,640 | $43,226 | $49,519 |
| OR | $67,630 | $51,040 | $48,739 |
| WV | $53,340 | $43,454 | $48,404 |
| AL | $53,470 | $42,846 | $47,623 |
| LA | $47,750 | $39,501 | $44,712 |
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 $78,620 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, Wyoming keeps the most at $87,566.
- The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Louisiana anchors the bottom at $44,712. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- All wage figures for stationary engineers and boiler operators are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $78,620. 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 stationary engineers and boiler operators 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 Wyoming retains the most, $87,566. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for stationary engineers and boiler operators deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.