- Maine ranks 25th of the 50 states and DC for median pay in this trade.
- Maine pays less than its only neighbor, New Hampshire.
- BLS counts about 1,780 machinists on payrolls in Maine.
- At the state median wage, a machine shop needs to bill about $120.53 an hour on the labor rate calculator's starting numbers.
Machinist pay in Maine, bottom to top
The BLS machinist group covers people who set up and run machine tools such as lathes, mills and grinders to make precision metal parts. Tool and die makers and CNC programmers are counted separately.
| Pay level | Hourly | Yearly | National hourly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $22.00 | $45,760 | $18.85 |
| 25th percentile | $24.08 | $50,090 | $22.87 |
| Median | $28.44 | $59,160 | $28.24 |
| 75th percentile | $34.92 | $72,640 | $32.55 |
| 90th percentile | $37.68 | $78,380 | $38.47 |
| Average (mean) | $29.28 | $60,910 | $28.52 |
Pay is bunched up in Maine. The top tenth earn $37.68 an hour or more, about 1.7 times the $22.00 at the bottom tenth. Nationally that gap is 2 times, so the step from the bottom of the scale to the top is shorter here than in most places.
The floor is higher than nationally ($22.00 against $18.85) but the ceiling is lower ($37.68 against $38.47), which squeezes pay toward the middle.
The average, $29.28, is close to the median, so pay sits fairly evenly around the middle.
How Maine compares with other states
Over a full year the gap to the national median is small: $59,160 in Maine against $58,750 nationally, $410 more.
In the state ranking, Maine sits 25th, between Texas ($28.45) and Wisconsin ($28.42). The range runs from $22.77 in West Virginia to $40.58 in Hawaii.
Every one of the neighboring states pays machinists more than Maine. The closest is New Hampshire at $29.57, and the biggest gap is with New Hampshire.
Every state ranked, with the national pay range: national machinist salary by state.
| Neighboring state | Median hourly | Median yearly | Against Maine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maine | $28.44 | $59,160 | |
| New Hampshire | $29.57 | $61,500 | +$1.13 an hour |
How many machinists work in Maine
About 1,780 machinists work on payrolls in Maine, 0.6% of the 287,050 nationwide, the 35th largest count among the states.
The trade is a bigger part of the local job market than it is nationally: 2.8 of every 1,000 jobs in Maine, 1.5 times the national share.
What a machine shop in Maine should charge
Say you run a machine shop in Maine and pay the state median of $28.44 an hour. Here is the labor rate calculator's math on its starting numbers: 40-hour weeks, 10 paid days off, 2 unbilled hours a day, 7.65% payroll taxes, $90,000 a year of overhead and 15% profit.
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Paid hours | 40 × 52 | 2,080 |
| Hours at work | 2,080 − 10 days × 8 | 2,000 |
| Billable hours | 2,000 × 6 ÷ 8 | 1,500 |
| Labor cost | $28.44 × 2,080 × 1.0765 | $63,681 |
| Break-even rate | ($63,681 + $90,000) ÷ 1,500 | $102.45 |
| Rate with 15% profit | $102.45 ÷ 0.85 | $120.53 |
That is $120.53 per billable hour, 4.2 times the wage, and almost the same as the $120.18 the same math gives at the national median wage.
Paying the 75th percentile instead, $34.92 in Maine, to hire and keep experienced people raises the rate to $131.91.
A cheaper crew saves less than it seems: at the 25th percentile wage of $24.08, the rate only drops to $112.88.
Overhead, at $60 of every billed hour, and the unbilled hours move this rate more than a raise does. A dollar more in wages adds about $1.76 to the rate.
Run it with your own numbers in the labor rate calculator. It is free and shows every step.
Where these numbers come from
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
The figures are the BLS state estimates for SOC 51-4041, machinists, across all industries, read straight from the May 2025 state data file. They cover wage and salary workers, not the self-employed. Where BLS did not publish a figure, this page leaves it out.
All states in one table: machinist salary by state.