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Plant jobs report · week of October 19, 2026

The US plant job market, from 10,913 live postings

Who's hiring plant engineers, technicians and supervisors, what it pays, and the skills plants ask for. Updated every week from manufacturers' own careers sites.

10,913
open plant roles
1,870
posted in the last 7 days

17% of all openings

1713
manufacturers hiring

SpaceX, Anduril Industries, Eaton

$91k–$130k
typical engineering base

25% of postings list pay

The takeaways

  1. 1

    Reliability has the most openings across the US: 2,481 roles, ahead of manufacturing (2,385).

  2. 2

    $96k–$137k is the typical base for controls engineers, the best-paid team here (239 postings list pay).

  3. 3

    SpaceX is hiring the most, with 386 open plant roles, 27 of them new this week.

  4. 4

    37% of postings name Team leadership, and 34% name Root cause.

Explore by team

Openings and pay, team by team

Tap a team to see its skills and hirers.

Open roles

openposted this week

Typical base pay (engineers and senior engineers)

  • ControlsBest paid$96k–$137k
  • Reliability$100k–$135k
  • Lean / CI$90k–$133k
  • Process$91k–$132k
  • Manufacturing$89k–$130k
  • Production$96k–$130k
  • Quality$89k–$129k
  • Industrial$85k–$125k
$80k$110k$140k

Skills plants name most

  • Team leadership#1 ask37%
  • Root cause34%
  • Lean27%
  • Automation21%
  • Tooling20%

Top 5 shown. See all of them →

Hiring the most

  1. 1SpaceX386
  2. 2Anduril Industries340
  3. 3Eaton254
  4. 4Magna147
  5. + the rest of the top hirers with a free account

By state

Where the plant jobs are

Tap a state for its report.

Top 5:1. California 1,4362. Texas 9693. Ohio 5574. Michigan 4655. North Carolina 407

AKMEVTNHWAIDMTNDMNILWIMINYRIMAORNVWYSDIAINOHPANJCTCAUTCONEMOKYWVVAMDDEAZNMKSARTNNCSCDCOKLAMSALGAHITXFL
FewerMore open rolestop 5

Who plants are hiring

Engineers, techs and supervisors

6,386 engineering and Lean / CI roles; 4,527 technician and supervisor roles on the same teams.

31%Technician
  • Engineer3,307 · 30%
  • Senior1,388 · 13%
  • Manager / lead1,691 · 15%
  • Supervisor1,177 · 11%
  • Technician3,350 · 31%

How fresh

When these roles went up

Roles posted in the last two weeks get the fastest replies from teams.

  • This week1,870
  • 8–14 days1,354
  • 15–30 daysMost4,563
  • 30+ days1,679
  • Date not listed1,447

Where

Top cities

  • Costa Mesa, CAMost roles159
  • Bastrop, TX158
  • Long Beach, CA143
  • Austin, TX81
  • Torrance, CA74

Industries

Which industries are hiring

Openings by industry

Free with an account. Takes 30 seconds.

Unlock the full reportSign in

Go deeper: what moves pay

Belt and license premiums, pay by years asked, skills that come as a package, and the unusual perks plants offer.

See the findings →The pay model →

Source and method

Source
ShopFloorJobs analysis of 10,913 live plant job postings from 1,713 manufacturers' own careers sites (Workday, SuccessFactors, Oracle, iCIMS, Greenhouse and others), not job boards.
Collected
Week of October 19, 2026. Postings are re-checked daily; closed roles drop out.
Method
Each posting is counted once per role and city. Teams and levels are read from the job title; pay is the middle of each posting's listed range, for engineer and senior engineer levels, shown where at least 3 postings list one; skills are counted when the posting names them.

Cite this report

ShopFloorJobs, "US plant jobs report, week of October 19, 2026," Week of October 19, 2026. https://shopfloorjobs.com/reports

Free to quote and share with a link to this page.

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