Occupation / job
Mechanical Engineers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$104,110 is $4,507 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Mechanical Engineers are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
296,810 people work as Mechanical Engineers — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.
Engineering suits people who want their work checked. Sign-off, code compliance and design review are the job, not friction added to it.
No verified preparation time is on file for Mechanical Engineers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$84,130 to $132,590 — 1.6x, or $4,038 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for Mechanical Engineers is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
Even at the 25th percentile Mechanical Engineers pays $84,130, $34,110 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.
Avoid it if you resent process. Much of the day is producing evidence that the work is correct, not producing the work.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 296,810 people employed as Mechanical Engineers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $104,110 as where you might be after years in Mechanical Engineers, and $84,130 as where you would start.
Put in money rather than ratios: $84,130 at the 25th percentile, $104,110 at the midpoint, $132,590 at the 75th. $48,460 separates the quarter of Mechanical Engineers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $132,590, the 75th percentile, is worth $28,480 a year more than the $104,110 midpoint and $48,460 more than the $84,130 a quarter of Mechanical Engineers settle for.
The climb from $104,110 to $132,590 is $28,480, against $19,980 down to $84,130. Rather more of the range sits above the midpoint than below it, so the realistic upside in Mechanical Engineers is larger than the realistic downside.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $40.44 at the bottom quarter, $50.05 at the midpoint, $63.74 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $104,110 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Mechanical Engineers, the hourly figure is $104,110 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else