Occupation / job
Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic
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
A $58,000 midpoint puts Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic $7,980 above the $50,020 typical American job — a 16% premium paid for the training, the licence or the conditions. It is not free money and it disappears the moment you stop meeting the requirement.
There are 1,470 of these posts in the country. Plan on the assumption that the job will not appear where you already live, because on those numbers it usually will not.
This work suits people who like setting a machine up properly and then producing consistently, which is a different skill from making one good part.
How long it takes to become one of the 1,470 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.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic earn under $49,070 and a quarter over $69,960 — 1.4x, or $20,890 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
The bottom quarter of Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic still clears $49,070 — $950 above the $50,020 typical job. A high floor is the most valuable and least advertised property an occupation can have.
Avoid it if the noise, the fume exposure and the standing are not acceptable long-run terms.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 1,470 figure counts people already working as Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
Top quarter to bottom quarter is 1.4x. In a band that narrow, $58,000 is a genuinely representative number for Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic and the main variable left is where you live.
The middle half of this field earns between $49,070 and $69,960. That is $20,890 of range, with $58,000 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Between $49,070 and $69,960 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $58,000. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $11,960; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $20,890.
From $58,000 it is $8,930 down to the bottom quarter and $11,960 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic is $27.88 an hour. The quarters sit at $23.59 and $33.63, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $58,000 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Patternmakers, Metal and Plastic, the hourly figure is $58,000 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