Pay model · week of October 19, 2026
What really moves plant pay, with everything else held equal
A statistical model of 2,682 live postings that list pay. It separates the effect of each skill, level, state, industry and job term from all the others, so a skill doesn't look valuable just because senior roles in California happen to ask for it.
- 2,682
- postings with pay
- 63%
- of pay differences explained
- $117k
- typical posted base
- 33
- statistically clear effects
What the model finds
- 1
+11% for postings that ask for CATIA / NX, the best-paying skill; then Python (+9.7%) and Casting (+5%).
- 2
+1.4% for each extra year of experience a posting asks for.
- 3
+17.1% going from engineer to senior engineer, same team, state and industry.
- 4
No clear effect from asking for a Six Sigma belt, once level, team and state are counted: the 95% range runs -1.5% to 2.4%.
- 5
No clear effect from requiring a degree, holding the rest equal.
- 6
+11.3% in California, the best-paying state for the same role; Florida is lowest (-13%).
Skills that pay
Each skill's effect on posted pay
Holding team, level, state, industry, years and job terms equal. Green = clearly higher pay; grey = no clear effect either way.
- 1CATIA / NX+11%95 postings
- 2Python+9.7%164 postings
- 3Casting+5%92 postings
- 4Union environment+4.4%212 postings
- 5Validation (IQ/OQ/PQ)+2.9%525 postings
Every factor
The full model, factor by factor
Dot = estimated effect; bar = 95% range. Pick a group to explore.
- Travel statedTop+5.5%
- Relocation offered+4.8%
- Degree required+1.1%
- Six Sigma / belt asked+0.4%
- Clearance / ITAR-1.5%
- Off-shift or on-call coverage-2.2%
clearly higher payclearly lower paynot clear (range crosses 0)Bar = 95% range. Compared with postings without it.
Every skill, team, state and industry in the model
Free with an account. Takes 30 seconds.
Source and method
- Source
- ShopFloorJobs analysis of 2,682 live plant job postings from 446 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
- Ordinary least squares regression on the log of each posting's base pay midpoint (2,682 postings, R² 0.63). Factors: team, level, state and industry (groups with fewer than 25 postings pooled), years asked, and yes/no job terms and skills read from the posting text (each needs 25+ postings). Effects are % differences in posted pay with the other factors held equal; ranges are 95% confidence intervals; "clear" means the range doesn't cross zero. Posted pay, not what people are actually paid. Correlation, not cause.
Cite this report
ShopFloorJobs, "What really moves plant pay," Week of October 19, 2026. https://shopfloorjobs.com/reports/pay-model
Free to quote and share with a link to this page.