Set up and program CNC (computer numerical control) machines that cut metal parts to a thousandth of an inch.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical machinist
$58,750
Machine operator
$39,200
Programmer or tool room
$80,010
The national median is $58,750 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $39,200. These are the federal wage survey figures for machinists, which is the official title that covers CNC (computer numerical control) machinists. Aerospace and medical device shops pay above the middle. Job shops doing simple production work pay below it.
$18 to $22 an hour
Machine operator loading and unloading parts
Operating is not machining. The pay jump comes when you can set up a job yourself: pick the tools, hold the part, prove out the program and hit the tolerance.
$30 to $40 an hour
Programmers, tool and die work, and night shift
Second and third shift usually add a dollar or two an hour on top. Overtime is common in manufacturing, and in a busy shop it can add a fifth to your pay.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a registered apprenticeship, which costs no tuition and pays a wage from day one, so your only spend is a starter set of calipers and micrometers. The high end is a two year associate degree at an in state community college at about $4,000 a year plus a fuller set of measuring tools built up over time, with a sub one year certificate in between at $3,000 to $6,000. Filing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) often covers most or all of the community college bill outright, which makes this one of the cheapest routes into a skilled job in the country.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). A Pell Grant covers most or all of a community college machining certificate, so this can be one of the cheapest routes into a skilled job in the country.
Overtime
Time and a half past 40 hours, and manufacturing runs hot in good years.
Shift differential
Extra per hour for evenings and nights.
Employer-paid training
Shops pay for credential testing because a certified machinist makes fewer scrap parts.
Health insurance and retirement
Standard at established shops, thinner at very small ones.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two routes, and both of them work: a short college program, or an apprenticeship that pays from day one.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Take shop or manufacturing class if your school still has one. Geometry and trigonometry matter more here than most trades.
Pick your route
Decision point
A community college certificate of a year or less, a two-year associate degree, or a registered apprenticeship with a shop.
Learn the manual machines first
First term
Good programs still start you on a manual lathe and mill. You cannot program a cut you have never made by hand.
Learn CNC (computer numerical control) setup and programming
6 to 18 months
Machine code, work offsets, tool libraries, and computer-aided design and manufacturing software.
Earn credentials on the job
Ongoing
The National Institute for Metalworking Skills credentials are earned by passing a written test and machining a part to print. Employers use them to decide pay.
Geometry and trigonometry
Bolt circles, tapers and angles. You will use this daily.
Shop or manufacturing technology
Time on a machine before you graduate puts you ahead of everyone else applying.
Drafting or computer-aided design
Reading a print is the first skill and the one people fail on.
Computer classes
Modern machining is as much software as steel.
No state licenses machinists. What employers read instead are the credentials from the National Institute for Metalworking Skills, which set national standards for machining, and a registered apprenticeship certificate from the United States Department of Labor. Neither is legally required. Both change what a shop offers you, because both prove you can hold a tolerance rather than just claim it. Apprenticeship openings are listed on apprenticeship.gov.
Community and technical colleges
Portland Community College in Oregon, for example, offers separate certificates in milling, turning and manual machining plus a two-year degree.
Registered apprenticeships
Run by individual shops, manufacturers and some unions. Usually about four years.
High school career and technical programs
Some finish a first credential before graduation, at no cost.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Programming
Writing and proving out the code rather than running someone else's. The clearest pay jump in the shop.
Five-axis machining
Complex aerospace and medical parts. Fewer people can do it, so it pays more.
Swiss-style turning
Tiny high-volume parts, common in medical device work.
Inspection and quality
Coordinate measuring machines and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. A path off the shop floor.
A driver's license
Shops sit in industrial parks that transit does not reach.
Safety training
A short course from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is cheap and shows up well on an application.
Welding or fabrication basics
Makes you useful in a small shop where nobody has one job.
Your own hobby project
A part you machined yourself says more in an interview than a transcript.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Shops often start at 6 or 7am. Read the print and the job traveler, set up the machine, load tools, set offsets, cut one part and measure it hard. If it is in tolerance, run the batch, checking parts at intervals and adjusting for tool wear. Between runs: deburring, documentation, and chasing the next job. It is noisy, it smells of coolant, and you are on your feet on concrete the whole time.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Machinists talk in thousandths, and a human hair is about three of them thick. On aerospace work the tolerance can be a tenth of a thousandth.
The code that drives CNC (computer numerical control) machines descends from punched-tape programming developed for the Air Force at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1950s. Machinists still call it G-code.
Every mill, lathe and press in a factory was itself made by machinists. It is one of the few trades that builds the tools every other trade depends on.
The federal outlook for machinists is little or no change in employment. What keeps shops hiring anyway is age: a large share of working machinists are near retirement, and the openings come from replacement rather than growth.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.