Occupation / job
Signal and Track Switch Repairers
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
$92,460 against a $50,020 national midpoint is 85% more, or $20.40 an hour. Almost nothing pays this much more without a long, expensive or restricted route in — read that route before reading the number again.
Nationally 8,720 people do this. That is a real occupation with a thin local presence — enough that Signal and Track Switch Repairers is a career, not enough that you can assume a second employer down the road.
These roles suit people who want to be the one who keeps things running, in work where competence is obvious to everyone around you within about a week.
We carry no verified training length for Signal and Track Switch Repairers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Signal and Track Switch Repairers earn under $79,720 and a quarter over $99,320: 1.2x, and $19,600 between the ends. That is a narrow band — enough room to be paid better than average, not enough for the occupation to be a route to a materially different income.
Even at the 25th percentile Signal and Track Switch Repairers pays $79,720, $29,700 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 being on call, or being the person who arrives after something has already gone wrong, would wear on you.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 8,720 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
At 1.2x between $79,720 and $99,320, this is a narrow distribution. $92,460 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
Put in money rather than ratios: $79,720 at the 25th percentile, $92,460 at the midpoint, $99,320 at the 75th. $19,600 separates the quarter of Signal and Track Switch Repairers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $99,320, the 75th percentile, is worth $6,860 a year more than the $92,460 midpoint and $19,600 more than the $79,720 a quarter of Signal and Track Switch Repairers settle for.
Getting from $79,720 to the $92,460 midpoint is $12,740; getting from there to $99,320 is only $6,860. The hard part of the range is the lower half, which is also the half a newcomer starts in.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Signal and Track Switch Repairers is $44.45 an hour. The quarters sit at $38.32 and $47.75, 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 Signal and Track Switch Repairers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $92,460 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $92,460 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Signal and Track Switch Repairers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else