Industrial Maintenance & Millwright

Keeping factories, plants, and warehouses running: millwrights, mechanics, robot techs, and roller-coaster mechanics.

Top pay: highest pay, longest training

• Plant Maintenance Manager: Runs the team that keeps a factory's machines running around the clock. Typical pay $115k.

Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship

• Reliability Engineer: Uses data to predict when machines will fail and fix them before they break. Typical pay $108k.
• Millwright General Foreman: Leads crews installing turbines, conveyors, and huge machines in plants. Typical pay $105k.
• Millwright: Installs, moves, and aligns heavy machinery like turbines, conveyors, and factory equipment. Typical pay $64k.
• Industrial Machinery Mechanic: Repairs and maintains factory machinery to keep production running. Typical pay $63k.
• Mechatronics Technician: Fixes machines that combine mechanics, electronics, and computer controls. Typical pay $65k.
• Robotics Technician: Installs, programs, and repairs industrial robots in factories and warehouses. Typical pay $66k.
• Hydraulics / Fluid Power Technician: Repairs hydraulic and pneumatic systems that power presses, lifts, and machines. Typical pay $60k.
• Vibration Analyst: Listens to machines with sensors to find hidden problems before they break. Typical pay $78k.
• Maintenance Planner / Scheduler: Plans and schedules all the maintenance work so machines are fixed without stopping production. Typical pay $72k.
• Amusement Ride Mechanic: Inspects and repairs roller coasters and rides at amusement parks. Typical pay $56k.
• Conveyor Belt Splicer: Joins and repairs the giant rubber conveyor belts that move coal, rock, grain and packages, using heat presses to vulcanize the ends together. Typical pay $58k.
• Gearbox Rebuild Technician: Takes apart huge industrial gearboxes from mines, mills and wind turbines, measures worn gears and bearings, and rebuilds them. Typical pay $60k.
• Industrial Pump Technician: Repairs and rebuilds the pumps that move water, sewage, chemicals and fuel in plants, cities and oil fields. Typical pay $58k.
• Machinery Mover: Moves giant factory machines, MRI scanners and printing presses in and out of buildings using jacks, rollers and gantry cranes. Typical pay $62k.

Starter: fastest way in

• General Maintenance & Repair Worker: Fixes everything in a building: leaky faucets, broken doors, lights, and HVAC filters. Typical pay $48k.
• Machinery Maintenance Worker: Cleans, oils, and adjusts factory machines and does simple repairs. Typical pay $54k.
• Lubrication Technician: Keeps machines running by applying the right oils and greases on the right schedule. Typical pay $48k.
• Industrial Maintenance Apprentice: Learns to repair factory machines while paid, often with the company covering college classes. Typical pay $45k.
• Maintenance & Repair Helper: Assists HVAC techs, mechanics and maintenance workers by fetching parts, holding tools and doing simple installs and cleanup. Typical pay $40k.

Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.