Nuclear Power Reactor Operators

$122,890 puts Nuclear Power Reactor Operators among the highest medians BLS publishes, roughly 146% above the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Pay at this level always has a gate in front of it: a residency, a bar exam, a clearance, or a decade.

National employment of 5,150 makes this a small field. Small fields are relationship markets: the people already in Nuclear Power Reactor Operators tend to know who is hiring before the posting exists.

Plant and system operation suits people who can stay attentive to a stable process for hours and act correctly in the rare minutes when it stops being stable.

How long it takes to become one of the 5,150 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.

The middle half of Nuclear Power Reactor Operators runs from $109,440 to $130,490 — a ratio of just 1.2x, and only $21,050 between the two ends. A band that compressed means the ceiling is as low as the floor; if your plan depends on out-earning the field, this is the wrong field.

The bottom quarter of this field earns $109,440 — $52.61 an hour, $59,420 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Nuclear Power Reactor Operators is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.

Avoid it if you could not stay sharp through hours of nothing happening, which is the failure mode the job actually has.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 5,150 people employed as Nuclear Power Reactor Operators; 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.

A 1.2x ratio between the quarters of Nuclear Power Reactor Operators is about as compressed as federal wage data gets. Pay that flat is set by a schedule — a union grade, a public band, a licence tier — and individual negotiation moves it very little off $122,890.

In cash terms the middle half of Nuclear Power Reactor Operators runs $109,440 to $130,490 — $21,050 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $122,890.

Between $109,440 and $130,490 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $122,890. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $7,600; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $21,050.

Getting from $109,440 to the $122,890 midpoint is $13,450; getting from there to $130,490 is only $7,600. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.

Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $59.08 at the midpoint for Nuclear Power Reactor Operators, $52.61 at the 25th percentile and $62.73 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.