A percentile is a position in the BLS distribution. It is not a promised offer or career forecast.
10th
$48,400
25th
$60,330
Median
$78,120
75th
$98,660
90th
$111,930
National context
What changes around the median
Chemical Plant and System Operators ranked 7 of 105 detailed production occupations with a published annual median. The national annual mean was 2.4% above the median, showing why one center point does not describe the full distribution.
Area estimates below use the same SOC code and release. They do not adjust for cost of living, experience, benefits, hours, employer mix, or remote-work policy.
Published metro rows
Highest medians for Chemical Plant and System Operators
Ranked only among metros with a published annual median. No cost-of-living adjustment.
Use the published range, job count, place pattern, and survey limits as separate facts. The guide stays tied to SOC 51-8091 and the May 2025 BLS release.
Questions, answered
Chemical Plant and System Operators: common wage questions
What is the median wage for Chemical Plant and System Operators?
The May 2025 BLS OEWS release published a U.S. median of $78,120 per year for Chemical Plant and System Operators. It is an occupation estimate, not a promised offer or an individual's pay.
How many Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs does BLS estimate nationally?
BLS published an employment estimate of 16,610 wage and salary jobs. The estimate is not a count of current openings and excludes the self-employed.
Why is the mean wage different from the median for Chemical Plant and System Operators?
The published annual mean is 2.4% above the median. The mean uses every published wage value, while the median marks the middle of the distribution.
Which metro has the highest published median for Chemical Plant and System Operators?
From market data to your evidence
Tailor for a real Chemical Plant and System Operators job, not a generic wage number.
Pick an eligible listing, then MeritLog can help you prepare from experience you have confirmed. WageScope never turns a BLS estimate into a qualification or résumé claim.
What the national Chemical Plant and System Operators median says
The May 2025 BLS OEWS estimate puts the U.S. median for Chemical Plant and System Operators at $78,120 per year. Median means the middle. Half of the wage values used for this estimate fall below that point. Half fall above it. The median is not one worker's pay. It is not a job offer. It is one clear mark for the middle of a broad national pay range.
BLS also lists 16,610 wage and salary jobs for Chemical Plant and System Operators. That count covers jobs in the survey's scope. It does not count open job ads. It also leaves out people who work for themselves. The wage and job counts share the same May 2025 reference point, so they can be read together without mixing time periods.
The Chemical Plant and System Operators mean of $79,970 per year is 2.4% above the $78,120 median on the same published median. Mean means BLS adds the wage values and divides the total by the number of jobs behind the estimate. A gap between mean and median shows that the shape is not even. It does not explain the cause of the gap.
BLS names this record Chemical Plant and System Operators and gives it SOC 51-8091. The two-part code is the stable key for this page. A role with a close name keeps a different code, wage row, job count, and area pattern. WageScope never joins two SOC records because their words sound alike.
For SOC 51-8091, the U.S. row reports 16,610 wage and salary jobs. Its annual median is $78,120 per year. Its matching mean is $79,970 per year. These facts come from one national row and one May 2025 release.
The same SOC 51-8091 appears in 35 state or territory rows, 29 metro rows, and 10 nonmetro rows in this artifact. A missing local row stays missing. The national record does not fill it, and a nearby SOC does not stand in for it.
Read the Chemical Plant and System Operators wage ladder from low to high
The 10th percentile is $48,400 per year. The 25th percentile is $60,330 per year. The median is $78,120 per year. The 75th percentile is $98,660 per year. The 90th percentile is $111,930 per year. Each point marks a place in the same national wage spread.
A percentile is a rank point. It is not a career step. For example, the 10th percentile means 10% of wage values are at or below that mark. It does not mean a new worker starts there. The 90th percentile means 90% are at or below that mark. It does not mean a worker can reach it after a set number of years.
The middle half runs from $60,330 to $98,660 per year. That span is $38,330. The full 10th-to-90th span is $63,530. These spans show why one median cannot stand in for every Chemical Plant and System Operators job.
What the gaps around the Chemical Plant and System Operators median show
The median is 61.4% above the 10th percentile. The 90th percentile is 43.3% above the median. The two sides do not have to match. A wider upper side can pull the mean up. A wider lower side can pull it down. The data shows the shape, but not the reason for that shape.
The 25th-to-median step is $17,790 per year. The median-to-75th step is $20,540 per year. These two steps give a closer look at the middle half. They are often more useful than a single top-to-bottom gap because they keep the center in view.
Use this ladder as a fact check when you read a job post. A posted range can sit below, near, or above these BLS marks. That does not make the post wrong. A job may differ by place, hours, level, field, employer, or work rules. Keep the posted range tied to that listing. Keep the BLS range tied to the whole occupation.
Metro areas with the highest published Chemical Plant and System Operators medians
WageScope found 28 metro rows with the same published annual median for Chemical Plant and System Operators. It sorts only those rows. It does not fill a blank row. It does not turn a blank into zero. The first six rows below have the highest published medians in this release. The list is a wage rank, not a rank of places to live or work.
The first row is Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX, at $117,430 per year. The middle metro row by published pay is Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, at $77,260 per year. That middle metro mark gives one more check on how far the top rows sit from a common place in the set.
These are nominal wages. Nominal means the dollar amount shown in the source. This list does not adjust for local price levels. It also does not tell us how many openings an area has now. Use a local page to see price-level context when an exact BEA row exists. Use the separate job block to inspect current employer-title matches.
1. Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $117,430 per year, or $39,310 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists Not published jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is Not published.
Job count
Metro areas with the largest Chemical Plant and System Operators job estimates
A large wage can appear in a small job market. A large job market can have a lower wage. That is why WageScope keeps pay and job count in separate views. The six rows below have the largest published employment estimates for Chemical Plant and System Operators among metro rows in this release. Employment means the number of wage and salary jobs in scope. It does not mean open roles.
Baton Rouge, LA has the largest listed metro estimate in this set, at 1,720 jobs. Its median is $104,410 per year. Compare that with Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX, which leads the published median list. The leaders may match, or they may not. Each list answers a different question.
Job count can help you see the scale of a local labor market. It cannot show churn, new hiring, job quality, remote work, or the chance that one person will get hired. Current listings add a second view, but they are a dated sample of posts. WageScope never turns the listing count into a demand score.
1. Baton Rouge, LA has 1,720 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 10.4% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $104,410 per year, or $26,290 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 39.39.
Local share
Where Chemical Plant and System Operators has a larger share of local jobs
Location quotient is a share check. A value of 1 means the role has the same share of local jobs as it has across the nation. A value above 1 means the local share is larger. A value below 1 means the local share is smaller. It is not a count. It is not a wage. It does not say that a place is growing.
Lake Charles, LA has the highest published location quotient in this bounded metro set, at 68.5. The same row lists 740 jobs and a median of $102,310 per year. Reading all three values keeps a high share from being mistaken for a large market or high pay.
A small area can have a high location quotient because the role makes up a large part of a small local job base. A large area can have many workers and a lower quotient. Use the quotient to ask where the role is common in the mix. Use employment to ask how many jobs BLS estimated. Use the wage fields to ask what the published pay range looks like.
1. Lake Charles, LA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 68.5. BLS lists 740 jobs and a median of $102,310 per year, or $24,190 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
2. Baton Rouge, LA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 39.39. BLS lists 1,720 jobs and a median of $104,410 per year, or $26,290 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
SOC family
How Chemical Plant and System Operators sits in Production
Chemical Plant and System Operators is SOC 51-8091. BLS places it in the Production major group. Among 105 detailed roles in that group with a published annual median, Chemical Plant and System Operators ranks 7 of 105 by median. This is a pay rank inside one source family. It is not a rank of skill, value, status, or career fit.
The closest same-family medians help set a fair peer frame. They do not claim that the work is the same. Official SOC titles can cover different tasks and settings. WageScope uses the family only because BLS publishes that link. It does not infer a career move, a skill match, or a hiring path from the wage gap.
Use these peer rows to spot whether the $78,120 median sits near many family roles or far from them. Then open a role's own page before using its number. Each role has a different code, job count, wage spread, and place pattern. One family label does not erase those facts.
1. Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators, SOC 51-8021, has a U.S. median of $78,620 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $500 per year.
2. First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers, SOC 51-1011, has a U.S. median of $74,450 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $3,670 per year.
Data care
How much care to use with the Chemical Plant and System Operators estimate
BLS marks the employment relative standard error at 5.2%. It marks the mean-wage relative standard error at 1.4%. A relative standard error, or RSE, is a survey precision flag. A smaller RSE often means less sampling uncertainty. It is not the chance that one worker's pay is right or wrong.
The employment RSE applies to the 16,610 job estimate. The mean-wage RSE applies to the published mean of $79,970 per year. These fields do not give a matching RSE for the median or each percentile. WageScope shows the fields BLS published and does not move one RSE to another measure.
Survey values can change when BLS updates its methods, sample, models, or source year. That is why this page keeps May 2025 in view. A later release can replace these facts only after MeritLog pins the new official files, checks the rows, and reviews the page again. A changed number is not treated as a correction unless the source says so.
A simple way to compare Chemical Plant and System Operators across places
First, compare the same wage metric. Use annual with annual or hourly with hourly. Next, check the source date. Keep May 2025 BLS rows together. Then read employment and location quotient beside pay. This stops a high median from standing in for market size or local share. Last, add BEA price-level context only when the exact place has an approved row.
A state, metro, and nonmetro area are not the same kind of map. Do not rank them in one list without saying so. WageScope groups like with like. It also keeps a national row as a broad bench mark. A local page can show the local row, its state row when that link is exact, and the U.S. row without blending them.
If a value is blank, keep it blank. If BLS marks a top code, read it as a lower bound. Do not fill a blank from a nearby place. Do not turn a wage gap into a claim about taxes, hours, benefits, work rules, or a household budget. Those facts are not in the OEWS row.
Move from Chemical Plant and System Operators wage data to one real listing
The job block on this page uses a strict employer-title match for Chemical Plant and System Operators. It may show fewer rows than the full MeritLog job search. That is on purpose. A false negative is safer here than a job card for a different role. Each card keeps its employer, place, source, and seen date. The cards do not change the BLS wage data.
Open one listing and read its own pay, work place, level, and needs. Compare its posted range with the BLS spread only as context. A posted range is set by an employer for one role. The BLS range is a survey view across many jobs. Neither source proves that a person is fit for the work.
When you tailor a résumé, use work facts you can back up. Do not turn $78,120 into a skill or result. Do not copy a BLS job count into your work history. MeritLog can help shape confirmed experience for a chosen listing. The wage page stays public and read only. It does not save a job or create a résumé on page load.
What this Chemical Plant and System Operators page does not claim
This page does not say what one Chemical Plant and System Operators worker earns. It does not promise that a job pays the median. It does not state a starting wage. It does not explain why the mean and median differ. It does not add benefits, tips, stock, bonus pay, taxes, or work hours unless BLS includes them in the published wage measure.
The page does not count people who work for themselves. It does not turn 16,610 into current openings. It does not read private MeritLog jobs or Career Memory. MeritLog does not use the page to build a private career profile. While public analytics are on, GA4, Ahrefs, and Meta may receive the public page URL; Your Privacy Choices or Global Privacy Control turns that off. The page does not send its text to a model.
The best use is narrow and clear. Read the May 2025 BLS wage range. Check how the role changes by place. Add the separate 2024 BEA price level when an exact row exists. Inspect a dated employer-title match. Then make a résumé choice from facts you have confirmed. Keep each source tied to the question it can answer.
Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX has the highest annual median among the metro rows with a published value on this page, at $117,430. This is a nominal BLS estimate with no price-level adjustment.
Are the current job listings included in the BLS wage calculation?
No. MeritLog shows eligible live public-catalog listings separately, with their own source and observation date. Posted pay never changes the official BLS distribution.
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $111,900 per year, or $33,780 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists 300 jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is 1.18.
3. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $106,020 per year, or $27,900 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists 1,420 jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is 4.05.
4. Baton Rouge, LA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $104,410 per year, or $26,290 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists 1,720 jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is 39.39.
5. Lake Charles, LA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $102,310 per year, or $24,190 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists 740 jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is 68.5.
6. Mobile, AL has a Chemical Plant and System Operators median of $96,210 per year, or $18,090 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. BLS lists 110 jobs there, against 16,610 across the U.S. The local location quotient is 6.12.
2. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX has 1,420 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 8.5% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $106,020 per year, or $27,900 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 4.05.
3. Lake Charles, LA has 740 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 4.5% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $102,310 per year, or $24,190 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 68.5.
4. New Orleans-Metairie, LA has 460 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 2.8% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $92,260 per year, or $14,140 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 9.59.
5. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH has 410 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 2.5% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $82,170 per year, or $4,050 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 1.43.
6. Richmond, VA has 340 estimated Chemical Plant and System Operators jobs, or 2.0% of the national 16,610 job estimate. Its median is $77,930 per year, or $190 below the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. Its location quotient is 4.83.
3. New Orleans-Metairie, LA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 9.59. BLS lists 460 jobs and a median of $92,260 per year, or $14,140 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
4. Mobile, AL has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 6.12. BLS lists 110 jobs and a median of $96,210 per year, or $18,090 above the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
5. Spartanburg, SC has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 5.61. BLS lists 100 jobs and a median of $68,810 per year, or $9,310 below the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
6. Richmond, VA has a Chemical Plant and System Operators location quotient of 4.83. BLS lists 340 jobs and a median of $77,930 per year, or $190 below the U.S. Chemical Plant and System Operators median. The U.S. job estimate is 16,610.
3. Gas Plant Operators, SOC 51-8092, has a U.S. median of $87,820 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $9,700 per year.
4. Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Programmers, SOC 51-9162, has a U.S. median of $68,120 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $10,000 per year.
5. Aircraft Structure, Surfaces, Rigging, and Systems Assemblers, SOC 51-2011, has a U.S. median of $65,380 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $12,740 per year.
6. Tool and Die Makers, SOC 51-4111, has a U.S. median of $64,050 per year. Its gap from Chemical Plant and System Operators is $14,070 per year.
Chemical Plant and System Operators wages | BLS 2025
Current jobs
Precise employer-title matches for Chemical Plant and System Operators
Matched from employer-posted title terms, not a BLS classification. Confirm the listing's location because this occupation-wide set is not a U.S. place filter. A posted range never changes the official distribution above.
