Space industry salaries: what space jobs pay (2026)

What aerospace engineers, technicians, machinists and space scientists earn in 2026, measured from the newest federal wage data, NASA's pay tables and the pay ranges space employers publish in their own job postings

The typical aerospace engineer in the United States earned $134,960 a year in May 2025, about 2.6 times the $50,980 median for all American workers, according to the newest edition of the federal wage survey, published on 15 May 2026 - BLS OEWS May 2025. Inside the companies that build guided missiles and space vehicles, the average job paid $162,389 in 2025, more than double the private-sector average of $79,094 - BLS QCEW 2025 annual averages. Space work pays well. That part is not in dispute.

What the averages hide is how far the same job can swing. A SpaceX posting for a propulsion engineer in Hawthorne, California offered $100,000 to $130,000 at its first level and $115,000 to $160,000 at its second when read on 29 Oct 2026 - SpaceX posting, while almost none of the same company's 1,126 Texas postings carried a range at all - SpaceX job board feed. A Rocket Lab posting for a principal engineer adds roughly 30% on top of base in anticipated yearly stock - Rocket Lab posting. A NASA engineer at Johnson Space Center is paid from a federal table that rose just 1% in 2026 - OPM 2026 Houston table. And a technician working a second shift with guaranteed overtime can earn half again as much as the same hourly rate on a plain day shift.

This guide puts numbers on all of it, from first principles: what each official figure measures, why pay differs by employer, industry, place, clearance and shift, what employers actually post, what equity is worth, how pay grows with experience, and what space jobs pay in Europe and the UK. Ranges quoted from employer postings are dated examples of what one employer offered for one opening, not typical pay. If you are earlier in your search, start with the master guide on how to get a job in the space industry, and use the open roles on the job board to see who is hiring now.

Contents

1. What space jobs pay at a glance
2. What the pay numbers measure, and what they leave out
3. Engineers, scientists and software developers
4. Technicians, machinists and welders: hourly pay, shifts and overtime
5. Inside the space industry versus the rest of the economy
6. Pay by state and metro: the space hubs
7. NASA and federal pay in 2026
8. What space employers post: dated pay ranges from real openings
9. How to read a posted pay range
10. Equity and stock: what ownership adds
11. The security clearance premium
12. How pay grows with experience
13. Space pay in Europe and the UK
14. Putting it together: a pay decision framework

1. What space jobs pay at a glance

There is no "space worker" category in federal statistics. The space industry is a set of employers (launch companies, satellite builders, defense primes, NASA and its laboratories, component suppliers) that hire across dozens of ordinary occupations: engineers of every discipline, software developers, technicians, machinists, welders, inspectors and scientists. The best source for what those occupations pay is the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey. Its newest edition covers May 2025 and was released on 15 May 2026; the federal government shutdown delayed collection and processing, but BLS says no changes to its methodology were needed as a result - BLS OEWS news release, May 2026. Across all occupations, the mean wage in May 2025 was $69,770 - BLS OEWS news release.

Two cautions before the table. First, each figure covers the occupation across every industry, so "aerospace engineers" includes people designing airliners and business jets as well as rockets and satellites; Section 5 shows what the same occupations earn inside aerospace manufacturing specifically. Second, the median is the middle worker; the 10th percentile is the wage below which the lowest-paid tenth earn, and the 90th the wage above which the top tenth earn. The gap between those two percentiles is usually wider than the gap between occupations, which is the first thing to understand about space pay: who you are inside an occupation matters as much as which occupation you are in.

The table below lists the occupations that make up most of a space company's workforce, with their national employment and pay from the May 2025 survey - BLS OEWS May 2025, national estimates.

The chart shows the same spread for eight of these occupations: the 10th percentile, the median and the 90th percentile side by side.

Three tiers stand out. Physicists, engineering managers and computer hardware engineers sit at the top, with medians between about $160,000 and $172,000. The core engineering disciplines and software development cluster between roughly $100,000 and $136,000. Technicians earn around $78,000 to $83,000 at the median, and the production trades between about $49,000 and $65,000. Yet the spread inside each occupation is enormous: an aerospace engineer at the 90th percentile earns 2.4 times one at the 10th, and a software developer at the top tenth earns 2.6 times one at the bottom tenth.

Why this matters: a single "average salary" for a space job is almost useless for a decision, because most of the variation lives inside the occupation, driven by experience, employer, place, clearance and hours. How to apply this: find your occupation in the table, then use the rest of this guide to work out which of those drivers place you nearer the 25th percentile or the 75th, and judge any offer against that position rather than against the median.

2. What the pay numbers measure, and what they leave out

There are three main kinds of pay figure in this guide, and they are not interchangeable. The OEWS survey asks employers what they pay each occupation. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) counts every dollar reported to state unemployment-insurance systems, industry by industry. And job postings show the base pay an employer expects to offer one new hire. Comparing a figure from one with a figure from another, without knowing what each includes, is the single most common way people misjudge an offer in this field.

OEWS wages are "straight-time, gross pay, exclusive of premium pay": they include base rates, incentive pay and production bonuses, but they exclude overtime pay, shift differentials, weekend and holiday premiums, year-end and attendance bonuses, stock bonuses and profit-sharing, and they leave out the self-employed - BLS OEWS FAQ. The same FAQ notes that, starting with the May 2025 estimates, BLS publishes actual values for many high percentiles that earlier editions capped with a footnote, which is why a figure like the physicists' $274,110 at the 90th percentile now appears at all - BLS OEWS FAQ. QCEW works the other way: under most state laws its wages include bonuses, stock options, severance pay and tips, and it covers more than 95% of US jobs - BLS QCEW overview.

Job postings capture something narrower again. California defines the posted pay scale as "a good faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range that an employer reasonably expects to pay for a position upon hire," and says other compensation and benefits do not have to be posted - California Labor Commissioner FAQ. Washington goes further and requires a general description of "other compensation," which it defines to include bonuses, commissions, profit-sharing and stock options - Washington L&I policy ES.E.2, December 2025. Neither requires the posting to estimate overtime or shift pay.

How large is the missing layer? The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey counts "supplemental pay," which it defines as overtime and premium pay, shift differentials and nonproduction bonuses - BLS ECEC technical note. In June 2026 it averaged $2.23 per hour worked for private-industry production occupations, or 6.0% of their total compensation, and $3.59 an hour (4.6%) for management, professional and related occupations - BLS ECEC Table 4, June 2026. Those are averages across all workers, including many who never work a night shift, so for someone who does the gap is larger, as Section 4 shows.

A posted range or an OEWS wage shows only the first layer

Why this matters: a posted base range at a company that grants stock and pays a 10% night-shift premium can look smaller than an OEWS median that includes neither, even when the job pays more. How to apply this: before you compare two numbers, ask which layers each contains, and build every offer up to the same total: base, plus expected shift and overtime pay, plus bonus, plus a cautious value for equity.

3. Engineers, scientists and software developers

Engineering is the core of the space workforce, but "aerospace engineer" is a smaller share of it than most people assume. Space companies hire mechanical, electrical, electronics, materials, industrial, software and test engineers in large numbers, and many of their propulsion, structures and avionics engineers hold one of those titles. The path into the field, and which degree to choose, is covered in the guide on how to become an aerospace engineer; this section covers only what each discipline pays and why.

The common thread is that pay follows scarcity and consequence. Disciplines whose mistakes destroy hardware worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and whose skills take years to build, command more than disciplines with a large outside labor pool. That logic explains both why electrical engineers gain more by moving into aerospace than aerospace engineers do, and why software developers in space earn about what they would elsewhere.

Aerospace engineers

Aerospace engineers earned a mean of $142,060 and a median of $134,960 in May 2025 across 67,710 jobs - BLS OEWS profile. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook counts about 68,700 jobs in 2025, projects 8% growth from 2025 to 2035 and about 3,800 openings a year - BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. Its median wages by industry are the most useful view of where the money sits: $149,260 in research and development in the physical, engineering and life sciences, $142,630 in the federal government, $137,030 in aerospace product and parts manufacturing, $132,440 in engineering services and $126,740 in navigational and control instruments manufacturing - BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Only about 38% of aerospace engineers work in aerospace manufacturing itself: 25,900 of the 67,710, with another 11,130 in engineering services, 9,510 in the federal executive branch, 5,820 in scientific research and development and 5,770 in instrument manufacturing - BLS OEWS profile. The higher medians in research and government are best read as a mix effect rather than a better deal for the same person: research labs employ more doctorates, and the federal engineering workforce skews toward experienced staff paid on a locality-adjusted scale, while factories hire many engineers straight from school. The practical reading is that the employer type changes the experience profile of the people you are being compared with.

Electrical, electronics, mechanical, materials and industrial engineers

Inside aerospace manufacturing, the other disciplines together far outnumber aerospace engineers. The industry employed 25,680 industrial engineers, 12,060 mechanical engineers, 8,950 electrical engineers, 5,500 electronics engineers and 2,920 materials engineers in May 2025, against its 25,900 aerospace engineers - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace product and parts manufacturing. Each discipline also earns more there than its national median, but by very different amounts.

Electrical engineers in aerospace manufacturing had a median of $141,160, 17% above the $120,630 for electrical engineers in all industries; electronics engineers earned $148,750 against $130,220 (14% more); materials engineers $132,390 against $112,860 (17% more); mechanical engineers $112,900 against $104,110 (8% more); and industrial engineers $107,170 against $102,440 (5% more) - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace product and parts manufacturing. The pattern is consistent with first principles: an electrical engineer outside aerospace often works in utilities, construction or building systems, where the stakes per design are lower, while in aerospace the same degree is applied to flight avionics, radio-frequency hardware and power systems that must survive launch and vacuum. The aerospace premium is a premium for the harder version of the job.

Software developers

Software is the one function where space employers compete directly with technology companies for the same people, and the numbers show it. Software developers held 1,687,890 jobs nationally with a median of $135,980 and a 90th percentile of $214,670 - BLS OEWS profile. The 22,750 developers in aerospace manufacturing had a median of $135,490, essentially the same - BLS OEWS profile. Location matters more than industry: the median was $174,410 in California and $166,540 in Washington - BLS OEWS profile.

Posted ranges at space companies sit in the same band as their technology neighbors. On 29 Oct 2026, a SpaceX lead full-stack software engineer role in Hawthorne listed $160,000 to $225,000 - SpaceX posting, and a Blue Origin Software Engineer III listed $164,652 to $230,512 for Washington applicants - Blue Origin posting. The lesson for a developer is that space work does not cost you base pay relative to the wider market at the same level; whether it costs you total pay depends on the equity, which Section 10 covers.

Physicists, astronomers and space scientists

Physicists are the highest-paid occupation in this guide at the median, $172,250 across 20,430 jobs, with a 90th percentile of $274,110 - BLS OEWS profile. The 2,910 physicists in the federal executive branch had a median of $146,900, well below the all-industry figure, which suggests the top of the range is paid by private research and technology employers - BLS OEWS profile. Astronomers are a tiny occupation, 2,120 jobs with a median of $128,820, but the 470 in the federal government had a median of $174,120 - BLS OEWS profile. Atmospheric and space scientists, 10,000 jobs, had a median of $99,070, rising to $122,700 for the 2,590 in federal service - BLS OEWS profile.

The science track has a long, low-paid apprenticeship before those medians. A JPL postdoctoral position on coronagraph design for the Habitable Worlds Observatory listed a single figure of $83,820 on 29 Oct 2026 - JPL posting. At the other end, architectural and engineering managers in aerospace manufacturing had a median of $192,800 across 11,760 jobs, against $171,270 for the occupation overall - BLS OEWS profile.

Why this matters: the discipline you study sets the labor market you can fall back on, and the aerospace premium is largest for disciplines that have big, lower-paying markets elsewhere. How to apply this: if you are an electrical, electronics or materials engineer, aerospace is where your occupation pays most; if you are a software developer, compare space offers with technology offers on total pay, because base pay will be similar.

4. Technicians, machinists and welders: hourly pay, shifts and overtime

Technicians and skilled trades build, wire, test and launch the hardware, and they are the part of the space workforce whose pay depends most on hours. They are usually paid by the hour, they often work second shifts, weekends or long launch-site days, and the premiums for that work never show up in the OEWS figures. This section covers the base rates first, then the hourly bands employers post, then the premiums. The path into these jobs is covered in the guide on how to become an aerospace technician.

The first-principles reason technicians earn more in space than elsewhere is the cost of a mistake. A mis-torqued fitting, a contaminated valve or a cracked weld on a flight vehicle can destroy a mission, so employers pay for precision, documentation discipline and the ability to work in clean rooms and hazardous areas. That premium shows up most strongly in the occupations whose general market is lowest-paid, such as inspectors and welders.

What the federal data shows

The table compares each occupation's national median with its median inside aerospace product and parts manufacturing - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace product and parts manufacturing. Read the last column as well as the pay columns: aircraft assemblers, inspectors and machinists are the industry's largest production groups, while aerospace technicians and avionics technicians are smaller, more specialized crafts whose pay is more sensitive to the employer and the shift.

The biggest gap is for inspectors and testers, who earn 53% more in aerospace manufacturing than across all industries, followed by welders (19% more) and aerospace technicians (15% more). Aerospace engineering and operations technicians held about 11,600 jobs in 2025, and BLS projects 12% growth from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average, with about 1,100 openings a year - BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. One surprise: the best-paid avionics technicians are not in space at all. Avionics technicians at scheduled airlines had a mean wage of $106,720, the highest of any industry for the occupation - BLS OEWS profile.

Hourly bands at launch and spacecraft companies

Employers in pay-transparency states post technician pay by level, and the bands show how much a technician's pay depends on being promoted. On 29 Oct 2026, SpaceX listed CNC machinists on its Raptor engine line in Hawthorne at $23 to $27 an hour at level 1, $26 to $32.50 at level 2 and $31 to $38 at level 3 - SpaceX posting, with a separate posting for levels 4 and 5 at $36 to $43 and $41 to $51 an hour - SpaceX posting. Its avionics technicians for Falcon and Dragon were listed at $22 to $24.50 an hour at level 1, rising to $28.50 to $35 at level 3 - SpaceX posting.

Other employers' bands look similar. Relativity Space listed an avionics harness technician II in Long Beach at $28.40 to $42.60 an hour - Relativity posting, an apprentice launch pad technician at Cape Canaveral at $19.20 to $28.80 - Relativity posting and an apprentice propulsion test technician at Stennis Space Center at $23.27 to $34.90 - Relativity posting. Firefly listed a launch integration technician III at Vandenberg at $36.49 to $46.28 - Firefly posting. JPL listed a paint technician II at $75,504 to $91,936 a year - JPL posting, and Northrop Grumman listed a cleared engineering technician in Redondo Beach (current TS/SCI required) at $56,000 to $93,400 at level 2 and $66,600 to $111,000 at level 3 - Northrop Grumman posting.

Converted at 2,080 hours a year, the SpaceX machinist bands run from about $47,840 at the bottom of level 1 to $106,080 at the top of level 5. That puts an entry-level hire below the $58,750 national machinist median, and a top-level machinist well above the national 90th percentile of $80,010 - BLS OEWS profile. In other words, the bands are steep: the employer pays little for a beginner and a great deal for a proven one.

Shift differentials and overtime

Shift and overtime pay are where technician earnings diverge most from the official figures. Relativity's second-shift asset maintenance technician posting describes a 50-hour week that includes 10 guaranteed overtime hours, plus a 10% shift differential, on a base of $27.20 to $40.80 an hour - Relativity posting. A SpaceX engineering technician posting in Canandaigua, New York lists two night shifts that are "eligible for 15% shift differential," on a range of $22 to $43 an hour - SpaceX posting. Northrop Grumman's postings say that, depending on the position, employees "may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay" - Northrop Grumman posting. ULA hires CNC machinists in Decatur, Alabama on schedules such as three 12-hour weekend shifts - ULA posting.

The law turns those schedules into money. Federal law requires at least time and a half for hours over 40 in a workweek, and "all compensation for hours worked" enters the regular rate on which overtime is calculated - US Department of Labor Fact Sheet 56A, so a shift differential raises the overtime rate too. California adds daily overtime: time and a half after 8 hours in a day and double time after 12, although alternative schedules such as four 10-hour days or three 12-hour days are allowed under most wage orders - California Labor Commissioner overtime FAQ.

Here is the arithmetic for the Relativity schedule, assuming a full year of such weeks. At the bottom of the range, $27.20 an hour for 2,080 straight-time hours is $56,576. With the 10% differential and 10 weekly overtime hours at time and a half, the year is 2,860 straight-time-equivalent hours at $29.92, or about $85,571: 51% more for the same posted rate. At the top of the range, $84,864 becomes about $128,357. That is why a technician should never compare postings on the hourly rate alone, and why the OEWS medians understate what many shift technicians take home.

Salaried engineers face the opposite arithmetic. About nine in ten of the 2,847 postings on SpaceX's board on 29 Oct 2026 mentioned weekends - SpaceX job board feed, typically in a line such as "must be willing to work extended hours and/or weekends as needed" - SpaceX posting. On the same date, about one in nine Rocket Lab postings did - Rocket Lab job board feed, and about one in fourteen at Relativity - Relativity job board feed. For an exempt engineer, extra hours are unpaid: a $115,000 salary is $55.29 an hour at 40 hours a week and $40.21 at 55. The posted figure is the same; the price of your time is not.

Why this matters: for hourly staff, schedule can add half again to pay; for salaried staff, it can quietly cut the effective hourly rate by a quarter or more. How to apply this: ask every employer for the expected weekly hours, whether overtime is guaranteed or occasional, which shifts carry a differential and how large it is, then compute the year yourself as above.

5. Inside the space industry versus the rest of the economy

To see what the space industry itself pays, you need industry data, and the federal statistics offer two views. OEWS publishes occupation wages for NAICS 3364, aerospace product and parts manufacturing, which mixes aircraft, engines, missiles and space vehicles; it does not publish occupation wages for the space-specific six-digit industries - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace product and parts manufacturing. QCEW does publish average pay per job for the six-digit industries, including NAICS 336414, guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing, and its siblings 336415 (missile and space vehicle propulsion) and 336419 (other missile and space vehicle parts) - BLS QCEW 2025 annual averages.

Start with the occupation view. Across all occupations, the median wage in aerospace manufacturing was $96,920 in May 2025 across 563,460 jobs, almost double the $50,980 economy-wide median - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace product and parts manufacturing. Part of that gap is job mix: aerospace factories employ far more engineers and far fewer retail, food and care workers than the economy at large. The chart separates mix from pay by comparing the same occupations inside and outside the industry.

The premium is close to zero for aerospace engineers (1.5%) and software developers (slightly negative), and large for electronics and electrical engineers, technicians and especially inspectors. That pattern has a simple explanation. Aerospace engineers already work almost entirely in aerospace or for its customers and contractors, so their national median is mostly an aerospace median; software developers are priced by the technology market. Occupations with big outside markets at lower pay gain the most from moving in.

The QCEW view is narrower and more space-specific. The table shows 2025 average pay per job for the aerospace industries - BLS QCEW 2025 annual averages, NAICS 3364.

Guided missile and space vehicle manufacturing pays 25% more per job than aerospace manufacturing as a whole and about 2.05 times the private-sector average - BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 336414 and BLS QCEW 2025, all private industries. Remember that QCEW includes bonuses and, under most state laws, stock options, so some of this premium is equity and bonus income that OEWS never sees. California dominates: its 25,027 jobs in the industry, 31% of the national total, averaged $192,422 in 2025, up 9.7% in a year, while Florida's 14,850 averaged $140,455 and Texas's 1,646 averaged $160,017; BLS withholds the figures for Colorado, Washington and Alabama in this industry - BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 336414.

The trend over time tells a less flattering story than the level.

From 2018 to 2025, average pay per job in space vehicle manufacturing rose 17.6% in nominal terms, from $138,123 to $162,389, while pay across all private jobs rose 38.3% - BLS QCEW 2018 and BLS QCEW 2025. Consumer prices rose by about 28% over the same years - BLS CPI-U via FRED. So the industry's premium narrowed from 2.41 times the private average to 2.05 times, and its average pay per job did not keep up with inflation. That does not mean any individual's pay fell. Employment in the industry grew 30%, from 62,887 to 81,575 jobs, and when an industry hires quickly, a growing share of its workers are new and junior, which pulls down an average per job even while each person's pay rises. Swings in stock-option exercises, which QCEW counts, also move the average from year to year.

Why this matters: the space industry pays a real premium, but it is concentrated in specific occupations and states, and part of it is equity rather than salary. How to apply this: if your occupation is one with a large premium (electronics, electrical, materials, inspection, welding), target aerospace manufacturers specifically; if it is one with no premium (software), judge employers on total compensation and the work itself.

6. Pay by state and metro: the space hubs

The US space workforce clusters in a handful of states, each built around different anchors: Southern California's launch and satellite companies, Washington's satellite factories and Blue Origin, Colorado's defense and satellite contractors, Texas's launch sites and Johnson Space Center, Florida's Space Coast, and Alabama's Huntsville, home of Marshall Space Flight Center. The master guide covers which employers sit where; this section covers what they pay. The table pulls the BLS figures together for the six hub states - BLS OEWS May 2025, aerospace engineers, aerospace technicians and machinists, with QCEW industry pay - BLS QCEW 2025, NAICS 3364.

Two readings matter. In absolute terms, the West pays more: Alabama employs slightly more aerospace engineers than Washington, yet its median is 19% lower. Relative to local wages, though, Alabama's aerospace engineers stand out most, at 2.79 times the state's all-occupation median, against 2.51 in Washington. Technician pay varies most of all, from $62,130 in Alabama (a small group of 140 jobs) to $125,160 in Washington, a state figure that covers aircraft work as well as space - BLS OEWS profile.

Nominal pay is only half the comparison, because the same dollar buys different amounts in Huntsville and Los Angeles. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures that with Regional Price Parities, an index of local price levels where 100 is the national average - BEA Regional Price Parities. Its 2024 values were 93.1 for Huntsville - FRED, BEA RPP Huntsville, 113.6 for Los Angeles - FRED, BEA RPP Los Angeles, 111.1 for Seattle - FRED, BEA RPP Seattle, 105.8 for Denver - FRED, BEA RPP Denver, 100.7 for Colorado Springs - FRED, BEA RPP Colorado Springs, 98.6 for Houston - FRED, BEA RPP Houston, 100.0 for Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville on the Space Coast - FRED, BEA RPP Palm Bay and 110.4 for San Jose - FRED, BEA RPP San Jose. Dividing each metro's May 2025 median for aerospace engineers by its price level gives the comparison in the chart.

Price-adjusted, most of the West Coast advantage disappears. The nominal gap between Los Angeles ($163,280) and Huntsville ($131,090) is 24.6%; after local prices it is about 2%. Colorado Springs, where national-security space programs concentrate, comes out as one of the best deals in the chart at about $150,910 in national-average dollars. The Space Coast is the lowest both before and after adjustment, which plausibly reflects its mix of launch-operations roles rather than lower pay for identical work, though the BLS data cannot separate the two.

Taxes widen or narrow the gap further. Texas and Florida levy no individual income tax and Washington taxes only capital gains, while California's top marginal rate is 13.3%, Colorado's flat rate is 4.40% and Alabama's top rate is 5% - Tax Foundation, 2026 state income tax rates. Employers also set their own geographic pay zones. A Blue Origin fluids analyst III posting listed the same role at $121,023 to $169,432 for California and Washington applicants and 8.3% less, $110,938 to $155,312, for Colorado - Blue Origin posting. Northrop Grumman posted the same level 4 satellite systems engineer role at $135,800 to $203,600 in Huntsville - Northrop Grumman posting and $122,800 to $184,200 in Grand Forks, North Dakota - Northrop Grumman posting.

Why this matters: a Huntsville offer that looks 20% lower than a Los Angeles offer can leave you with as much or more to spend. How to apply this: convert competing offers into the same terms by dividing by the metro's price parity and subtracting state income tax, and remember that relocating within one employer usually moves you into a different pay zone.

7. NASA and federal pay in 2026

NASA's civil servants, like most federal white-collar employees, are paid on the General Schedule (GS): 15 grades, each with 10 steps, and a locality payment on top that differs by metro area. The grade depends on the level of the job and the applicant's education and experience, and each announcement states it; the Johnson Space Center posting below, for example, was a GS-13. Because the tables are set nationally, NASA pay is the most transparent in the industry: you can read your exact salary off a public table before applying.

For 2026, the tables incorporate a 1% General Schedule increase with no change to locality rates ("Total Increase: 1%") - OPM 2026 Houston table; the raise was formalized by Executive Order 14368 on 18 December 2025 - FedSmith, August 2026. The base GS-13 range, before locality, runs from $90,925 at step 1 to $118,204 at step 10 - OPM 2026 base General Schedule. Locality is what separates NASA centers, and OPM's definitions place each center in a locality area: Santa Clara County (Ames) in San Jose-San Francisco, Kern County (Armstrong at Edwards) in Los Angeles, Brevard County (Kennedy) in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Hampton (Langley) in Virginia Beach-Norfolk, Prince George's County (Goddard) in Washington-Baltimore, and Hancock County, Mississippi (Stennis) in "Rest of US" - OPM 2026 locality pay area definitions.

The locality payments behind the chart are 46.34% for San Jose-San Francisco - OPM 2026 SF table, 36.47% for Los Angeles, where Armstrong's GS-13 step 1 is $124,085 - OPM 2026 LA table, 35.00% for Houston, 33.94% for Washington-Baltimore - OPM 2026 DC table, 22.23% for Cleveland - OPM 2026 Cleveland table, 21.91% for Huntsville - OPM 2026 Huntsville table, 18.80% for Virginia Beach-Norfolk - OPM 2026 Virginia Beach table, 17.93% for Palm Bay - OPM 2026 Palm Bay table and 17.06% for the rest of the country - OPM 2026 Rest of US table. The top of every table is capped at $197,200, which compresses senior pay in high-locality areas: in San Jose-San Francisco, both GS-14 step 10 and GS-15 step 10 are capped at that figure, so a GS-15 there earns between $184,950 and $197,200 - OPM 2026 SF table.

A real posting shows how exactly the tables translate. Johnson Space Center's direct-hire announcement for an Aerospace Engineer (AST, Aerospace Flight Systems) at GS-13 listed $122,749 to $159,575, exactly the Houston GS-13 step 1 to step 10 range; it was open from 5 to 9 June 2026, was a permanent appointment, required no security clearance and did not reimburse relocation - USAJOBS posting. Within a grade, pay rises by steps on a fixed timetable: one year in each of steps 1 to 3, two years in each of steps 4 to 6 and three years in each of steps 7 to 9 - OPM within-grade increases, so reaching step 10 by time alone takes 18 years. Promotions to the next grade, not steps, drive most of an engineer's federal pay growth.

The 2025 to 2026 context matters for anyone weighing NASA. About 870 NASA employees took the first round of the deferred resignation program and about 3,000 the second, leaving an estimated civil servant workforce of about 14,000 - SpacePolicyOnline, July 2025. On 17 April 2026 NASA and OPM opened NASA Force, a hiring initiative for early- to mid-career engineers and technologists whose first openings were two-year term positions that may be extended - NASA, April 2026. For 2027, the administration has proposed no pay increase for civilian federal employees - Government Executive, August 2026; the final rates are normally set by executive order in December, as the 2026 rates were.

How does federal pay compare? At the middle, closely: federal aerospace engineers had a median of $142,630, above the $137,030 in aerospace manufacturing - BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. At the top, the cap binds and there is no equity. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is different again: it is managed by Caltech, its staff are not federal employees, and it posts its own ranges (Section 8).

Why this matters: federal pay is predictable, public and competitive at the middle of the distribution, but capped at the top and exposed to political decisions on raises and staffing. How to apply this: read your likely grade and the locality table for the center before you apply, assume steps rather than raises for planning, and weigh the federal pension and job structure against private equity rather than comparing base pay alone.

8. What space employers post: dated pay ranges from real openings

A growing share of US job postings now carry pay ranges because state laws require them. Colorado requires employers to disclose compensation in all job postings, internal and public, together with information about benefits and how and when to apply - Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. California requires employers with 15 or more employees to include a pay scale in any job posting - California Labor Commissioner FAQ. Washington requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose a wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits and other compensation, since 1 January 2023 - Washington L&I policy ES.E.2. New York requires businesses with four or more employees to give "the minimum and maximum annual salary or the hourly compensation" in advertised roles - New York State Department of Labor.

By August 2026, 17 states and the District of Columbia had enacted pay transparency requirements of some kind; Texas, Florida and Alabama were not among them - Paychex, updated September 2026. The effect is visible in employers' own job boards. On 29 Oct 2026, SpaceX showed a pay range on 909 of its 938 California postings and 456 of its 483 in Washington, but on only 6 of its 1,126 Texas postings and none of its 122 in Florida - SpaceX job board feed.

Other employers follow the same pattern with exceptions that are choices, not obligations. Rocket Lab showed ranges on all 256 California postings, all 53 in Maryland and all 28 in Colorado, but on none of its 34 in Arizona, 22 in New Mexico or 17 in Mississippi - Rocket Lab job board feed. ULA labels its range "Salary Range (for ULA - Denver only)" on Colorado postings - ULA posting, while its Decatur, Alabama technician posting shows none - ULA posting. Firefly posts ranges for its Vandenberg, California roles - Firefly posting but not for its Texas roles - Firefly posting, and Blue Origin's Space Coast launch engineer posting shows no range - Blue Origin posting. Relativity Space, by contrast, showed a range on all 404 of its postings, including Florida and Mississippi - Relativity job board feed, and Northrop Grumman posts ranges for Alabama jobs too - Northrop Grumman posting.

The table collects engineering examples read on 29 Oct 2026. Each is one opening at one point in time; ranges change often and are a guide to the band, not a promise.

Read against the BLS data, a pattern emerges. Commercial postings for early-career engineers cluster around $90,000 to $140,000, mid-level roles around $115,000 to $170,000, and principal or level 4 to 5 roles from about $160,000 to roughly $300,000. Those early-career bands sit below the Los Angeles median of $163,280 for aerospace engineers, not because space startups underpay, but because each posting covers one level while the BLS median spans everyone from new graduates to 30-year veterans - BLS OEWS profile. Northrop's payload operations posting also describes a 9/80 schedule, nine-hour days Monday to Thursday with every other Friday off - Northrop Grumman posting, a benefit with real value that no range captures.

Why this matters: in transparency states, you can see an employer's band before you apply, and the absence of a range in Texas or Florida tells you about the law, not about the pay. How to apply this: for a role in a state without a posting law, look up the same employer's postings for a similar level in California, Colorado or Washington and adjust for the price and tax differences in Section 6.

9. How to read a posted pay range

A posted range looks like a simple fact, but it is a compressed description of an employer's pay structure, and different employers compress it differently. The law sets the outer meaning. California describes the range as what the employer "reasonably expects to pay for a position upon hire" - California Labor Commissioner FAQ. Washington says it "should provide the applicant with the employer's most reasonable and genuinely expected range of compensation for the job" and should extend from the lowest to the highest pay the employer set before publishing - Washington L&I policy ES.E.2. Within those rules, employers choose how wide to make the band, and the width tells you how much of it is really in play for a new hire.

The width varies widely across the examples in this guide. ULA's ranges run from the minimum to about 1.67 times the minimum: $67,895 to $113,159 for a Mechanical Engineer 1 - ULA posting. Relativity's run to 1.5 times, which is 20% either side of the midpoint, for example $104,000 to $156,000 - Relativity posting, and Northrop Grumman's to about 1.5 times as well. SpaceX splits a posting into levels, each about 1.2 to 1.4 times wide. JPL publishes what it calls "the typical full time equivalent annual hiring range," about 1.2 times wide: $99,112 to $118,560 for a fault protection systems engineer I - JPL posting. A federal GS grade runs 1.3 times from step 1 to step 10 - OPM 2026 Houston table.

The first-principles reading follows from what each band represents. A wide band covers the whole salary range of a level, including people who have been in that level for years and are about to be promoted, so a new hire will usually land in the lower half of it. A narrow "typical hiring range" describes where offers actually land, so the midpoint is a realistic target. A multi-level posting, like SpaceX's or Northrop's primary and secondary levels, means the level decision moves your pay more than any negotiation within a level: the jump from SpaceX's level 1 to level 2 on the Dragon propulsion posting is $15,000 at the bottom and $30,000 at the top - SpaceX posting.

A practical routine for any posting follows from that. The checklist below turns a range into an expected offer.

• Identify the band type (whole level, midpoint band, hiring range or multi-level) from its width and wording.
• Place yourself in it using the BLS percentiles for your occupation and metro.
• Ask which level you are being considered for before discussing numbers.
• Ask what sits outside the range: bonus, equity, shift differentials, overtime and relocation.
• Rebuild the total as in Section 2, then compare.

The order matters because most of the money is decided early. If you are slotted into the wrong level, negotiation inside the band can recover a few thousand dollars at most, while a level change can be worth tens of thousands. And because California and Washington define the range as what the employer expects to pay at hire, an offer above the posted maximum should be unusual; if you believe you are worth more, the conversation to have is about the level, not the number.

Why this matters: two postings with the same midpoint can imply very different offers depending on how the band is built. How to apply this: read the width before the numbers, aim for the midpoint of a narrow band and the lower-middle of a wide one, and spend your negotiating effort on the level.

10. Equity and stock: what ownership adds

Equity is the layer of space pay that varies most by employer type, and it is the one the official statistics handle worst: OEWS excludes stock bonuses entirely - BLS OEWS FAQ, while QCEW counts stock options as wages under most state laws - BLS QCEW overview. Four broad models appear in the postings in this guide. Listed companies grant stock and run discounted purchase plans; private startups offer equity that cannot easily be sold until the company lists or is acquired; defense primes such as Northrop Grumman describe a discretionary cash bonus - Northrop Grumman posting; and federal employers offer no equity at all, but a retirement plan whose basic benefit pays an annuity every month for life - OPM, FERS.

Among the employers in this guide, only Rocket Lab puts a number on the equity in its postings, which makes it the cleanest example. Its postings state an "anticipated annual equity grant value" and note that "realized value depends on vesting and stock-price performance" - Rocket Lab posting. The table compares the posted base and total ranges read on 29 Oct 2026.

The shape is typical of technology-style compensation: equity is a modest top-up for mid-level engineers and a large share of pay for senior ones. Both level II roles carry the same equity band, $10,075 to $17,625 a year, which suggests the grant is set by level rather than by role. Rocket Lab's postings also describe an employee stock purchase program with a 15% discount on company stock - Rocket Lab posting.

SpaceX's equity changed character in 2026. Before its listing, employees could sell shares only in company-run tender offers, held twice a year; in December 2025 Bloomberg reported a price of $421 a share, valuing the company at about $800 billion and roughly double the $212 set in July 2025 - The Star, reporting Bloomberg, December 2025. On 11 June 2026 SpaceX priced its initial public offering of 555,555,555 Class A shares at $135 a share, to trade on Nasdaq as SPCX from 12 June - SpaceX investor relations. The stock opened at $150 and closed its first day at $160.95, up 19%, while Morningstar's analysts valued the company at $780 billion and called the shares overvalued - NBC News, June 2026. Its postings describe possible "long-term incentives, in the form of company stock or long-term cash awards," discretionary bonuses and a discounted employee stock purchase plan - SpaceX posting.

Private startups offer the widest spread of outcomes. Relativity Space's postings describe "competitive salary and equity" without a figure - Relativity posting. At a private company there is no market price for the shares, so any value placed on a grant is an estimate, and the grant pays nothing in cash until the company is sold, lists or runs a tender offer. That is not a reason to refuse equity, but it is a reason to value it cautiously. The reverse risk applies to listed stock: it is liquid, but a large share of your wealth tied to your employer's share price doubles your exposure to one company, since a bad year can hit your job and your savings at once.

Why this matters: in Rocket Lab's postings, equity adds about 27% to 30% to base pay for principal engineers, enough to change which offer is best, and about a tenth for level II engineers. How to apply this: ask for the annual grant value, the vesting schedule and the basis of any valuation; count listed stock at a discount to its current price and private-company equity at a steep discount; and compare the result with the cash certainty of a defense prime or the pension of a federal job.

11. The security clearance premium

A large part of the space economy works on national-security programs: missile warning and tracking satellites, national security launch, reconnaissance and classified payloads. Those programs require staff with security clearances, and a clearance changes your pay because it changes how scarce you are. The rules, levels and process are covered in the guide to ITAR, U.S.-person rules and security clearances; this section covers what a clearance is worth.

The best primary data on clearance pay is the annual ClearanceJobs survey. Its 2026 report is based on an online survey conducted from 9 September to 31 December 2025, with 27,963 participants and 11,533 usable responses after excluding those without a clearance, the unemployed, active-duty military, students and compensation outside $18,000 to $400,000; figures are self-reported total compensation - ClearanceJobs 2026 Security Clearance Compensation Report. Average total compensation for cleared professionals reached $126,125 in 2025, up almost 6% from $119,131 - ClearanceJobs, March 2026.

The same report finds a polygraph premium: $149,875 for lifestyle or full-scope polygraph holders and $148,128 for a counterintelligence polygraph, against $118,680 for cleared professionals without one - ClearanceJobs 2026 report. By job category, systems engineers averaged $159,327, electrical engineers $123,635, mechanical engineers $116,325 and aerospace and aviation professionals $125,080; by state, Colorado averaged $138,256, California $125,104, Florida $118,330, Alabama $117,085 and Texas $112,705 - ClearanceJobs 2026 report. Contractors averaged $129,264 and government employees $124,404 - ClearanceJobs 2026 report.

Read these figures carefully. The $31,822 gap between the Secret and TS/SCI averages is not the price of the clearance alone: people with higher clearances also tend to be more senior and to work in better-paid roles, and the survey is self-reported by people who chose to respond. The first-principles case for a real premium is still strong. A clearance takes months to obtain, an employer must sponsor it, and a funded contract position cannot be filled until someone with the right access sits in it. A candidate who already holds an active clearance saves the employer that time and lets it bill the position immediately, and scarce inputs that unlock revenue command a price.

Employer postings show the premium indirectly. Northrop Grumman's level 5 structural engineer posting in Redondo Beach, which requires an active TS and/or SCI clearance, listed $177,000 to $265,600 - Northrop Grumman posting, and JPL's posting for a TS/SCI program area manager supporting the U.S. Space Force listed $162,552 to $201,864 - JPL posting.

Why this matters: an active clearance is one of the few credentials that is both scarce and portable between employers, and cleared pay is highest in Maryland ($139,303), Virginia ($138,748) and Colorado ($138,256) - ClearanceJobs 2026 report. How to apply this: if you are a U.S. citizen, consider a first job that sponsors a clearance even at similar pay, because the clearance itself raises your value at the next move; and if you hold one, keep it active, since a lapsed clearance loses much of its value.

12. How pay grows with experience

BLS does not publish pay by years of experience, but its percentiles show how much room there is to grow. For aerospace engineers, the 10th percentile is $86,700, the 25th $106,110, the median $134,960, the 75th $169,690 and the 90th $205,890 - BLS OEWS profile. The percentiles are not a career path, because the 90th percentile includes people in expensive cities and senior specialists as well as long tenure, but in an occupation dominated by large employers with level systems, much of the spread reflects level.

Sources: aerospace engineers, aerospace technicians, software developers and machinists, BLS OEWS May 2025.

Employers' level systems make the ladder concrete. ULA's mechanical engineer bands rise from $67,895 to $113,159 at level 1 to $99,604 to $166,007 at level 3 - ULA posting. Rocket Lab's GNC engineers in Littleton rise from $81,000 to $102,000 at level I to $100,000 to $137,500 at level II - Rocket Lab posting. Relativity's build reliability engineers rise from $90,000 to $136,000 at level I - Relativity posting to $104,000 to $156,000 at level II - Relativity posting. For technicians, SpaceX's machinist levels run from $23 an hour at the bottom of level 1 to $51 at the top of level 5, a factor of 2.2 - SpaceX posting.

The ClearanceJobs survey gives a self-reported cross-check for engineers in the cleared workforce: $75,916 at entry level (under two years), $95,572 with two or more years, $112,648 with five or more, $150,651 with 10 or more, and $186,671 for engineering managers - ClearanceJobs 2026 report. That is roughly a doubling from entry to senior level over about a decade, with management adding another quarter. In the federal system, each step adds about 3.3% of the step 1 salary (GS-13 base pay runs from $90,925 to $118,204 over nine steps) - OPM 2026 base General Schedule, and promotions to the next grade add more, which is why a posting's "promotion potential" matters as much as its starting grade - USAJOBS posting.

How people actually move up is revealing. In the ClearanceJobs survey, 38% of those who got a raise credited personal performance and 10% credited changing employers, while 53% of those whose pay fell had also changed employers - ClearanceJobs 2026 report. The first-principles reading is that in a level-based system, pay grows mainly through promotions, and a move between employers is a chance to be re-leveled, upward or downward. A move that resets your level, or trades a high-paying shift for a day shift, can cut pay even when the new posting looks better.

Why this matters: the biggest pay gains in this industry come from moving up levels, not from annual raises within one. How to apply this: learn your employer's level definitions, ask what evidence moves someone to the next level, and when you change employers, negotiate the level first and the number second.

13. Space pay in Europe and the UK

Readers outside the United States face a different pay structure, and two sources make it unusually transparent. The European Space Agency publishes its salaries by grade and country. Its 2026 table shows net monthly salaries, after internal tax, social security and pension contributions, for the first step of each grade; staff receive 12 months' salary a year, salaries are exempt from national income tax in ESA member states, and allowances such as expatriation and family allowances may be added - ESA salaries by grade and country, 2026. Most engineering vacancies are published in the A2 to A4 band, with A1 for under four years of experience after a master's degree, A2 for 4 to 14 years, A3 for 15 or more, and A4 for senior or managerial roles - ESA salaries by grade and country, 2026.

An A2 engineer at ESTEC in the Netherlands therefore takes home about €76,068 a year net and tax-free before any allowances, based on the table above. ESA also describes a retirement pension of up to 70% of last salary after 35 years of service, and 32.5 days of annual leave - ESA, What we offer. Comparing that with a US salary means converting the US figure to take-home pay first; an ESA net figure set against a US gross figure overstates the gap in America's favor.

For the UK, the Office for National Statistics' Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings gives pay by industry. Its 2026 provisional results, released on 22 October 2026, put the median full-time gross annual pay at £40,911 - ONS ASHE 2026. In the manufacture of air and spacecraft and related machinery (SIC 30.3), which mixes aircraft and space as the US aerospace data does, the full-time median was £54,185, 32% above the national figure, with a mean of £60,583 across about 81,000 jobs - ONS ASHE Table 16, 2026 provisional.

Pay transparency outside the US is patchy, and employer boards show it. On 29 Oct 2026 Rocket Lab showed no range on any of its 92 New Zealand postings - Rocket Lab job board feed, while a Toronto engineering internship listed a "Base Pay Range (Ontario Only)" of CAD $60,008 - Rocket Lab posting. For routes into ESA and the UK sector, see the international section of the guide on how to become an aerospace engineer.

Why this matters: European space salaries look much lower than American ones in headline terms, but ESA's tax-free net pay, allowances, pension and leave close a large part of the gap. How to apply this: compare net pay with net pay and add the value of leave and pension, and use the ESA table to read your likely grade before you apply, since the grade decides the salary.

14. Putting it together: a pay decision framework

Every section of this guide reduces to one idea: a space salary is the product of several independent factors, and each can be checked against public data. The occupation sets the broad band. Experience and level set your position inside it. The employer type decides how much comes as equity, bonus or pension. The location decides what the money buys and how much tax takes. The schedule decides how much an hourly worker earns on top and how much a salaried worker gives away. And a clearance can add a premium that travels with you.

The framework below turns those factors into a sequence you can apply to any offer. It is ordered from the factors you can check before applying to the ones you only learn in negotiation.

Each step uses a public source covered in this guide

In practice, most people skip the middle steps and compare base salaries, which is where the expensive mistakes happen. A Texas offer with no posted range may pay as much as a California one once taxes are counted. A technician job at a lower hourly rate with guaranteed overtime and a night differential can beat a higher-rate day job by tens of thousands of dollars. A NASA offer with a lower total can still be the better choice if you value the pension and structure, while a listed company's equity can be worth a quarter of base for senior engineers but little for new hires. Running each offer through the same sequence removes most of those illusions.

The sibling guides cover the parts of the decision that are not about pay: the master guide to getting hired, the aerospace engineer path, the aerospace technician path and the ITAR and clearance rules. All the guides on SpaceIndustry.jobs are collected on the learn page, and the job board lists open space roles, many with the employer's posted range.

Why this matters: an offer is a bundle, and comparing bundles by one component reliably picks the wrong one. How to apply this: for each serious offer, write down base, schedule premiums, bonus, equity, price level and tax, then compare the totals, and use the BLS percentiles to judge whether the base itself is fair for your level.

How this guide is researched

The figures in this guide were checked on 29 Oct 2026 against the primary sources named in each sentence: the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 (the newest edition, released on 15 May 2026), its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages annual averages for 2025, its Employer Costs for Employee Compensation for June 2026, the Office of Personnel Management's 2026 General Schedule tables, the Bureau of Economic Analysis's 2024 Regional Price Parities, the ClearanceJobs 2026 compensation report, ESA's 2026 salary table, the Office for National Statistics' 2026 provisional earnings survey, state labor departments, and employers' own job postings and public job boards, which were read and counted on that date; adjusted figures and ratios are this guide's own calculations from those sources. Posted pay ranges change often and openings close quickly, so treat every quoted range as a dated example and confirm the current figure on the employer's own posting before you rely on it.