CNC machinist salary: How much to pay the best operators?

A CNC, or Computer Numerical Control, machinist is a skilled professional who operates a variety of machines and equipment.  

Successful CNC machinists combine multiple skills, including mechanical design, CAM and CAD skills, math, and computer programming. 

In this article, we’ll explore exactly what a CNC machinist does and how much they typically make in their salary and other workplace benefits.

We’ll also discuss how TestGorilla’s test library can help you evaluate your CNC machinist candidates, so you can hire the most promising professionals for your organization.

What does a CNC Machinist do?

CNC machinists are generally highly skilled, and their role includes programming computer software that controls the movement of equipment and machinery in order to manufacture items. 

As such, CNC operators are indispensable for many tasks in the following industries: 

• Aerospace

• Transportation

• Defense

• Firearms

• Commercial

• Electronics

• Medical

• Optical

• Oil and gas

• Marine industry

A skilled CNC machinist follows the creation of a product from its initial phase (idea creation) all the way to the finished, manufactured item that you can observe and physically interact with. 

The problem is that there’s a massive shortage of CNC machinists, especially when it comes to the top operators. Companies therefore have to do everything they can to attract good CNC machinists while also trying to keep their current professionals satisfied, so they stay at the company.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how you can provide attractive employment terms for your CNC machinists, focusing especially on their salary. 

What is the highest-paid CNC machinist? 

Salaries for a CNC machinist vary according to the sectors, states, and countries in which they work. On average, a CNC machinist in the US makes $42,166 per year. However, the average salary scope actually varies quite a lot from state to state. 

The lowest average salary for a CNC machinist is in the state of Louisiana, where a CNC machinist can expect to make $32,066 per year, or just $15.42 an hour. On the other side of the scale is Hawaii, where a CNC machinist earns $51,052 a year on average, with an hourly wage of $24.54. 

The highest-paid CNC machinists, those that are in the 10th percentile, are paid $90,000 or more per year. But only employees with a lot of experience (10+ years in the role) can expect that kind of salary.

On top of their basic pay, CNC machinists may receive additional rewards, such as commissions, bonuses, or profit sharing from the company. So their total remuneration can be higher than their base salary. 

If you want to prevent the turnover of your CNC machinists, you should make sure that you’re not underpaying them or your competition might coax them away. 

Here’s how TestGorilla can help you evaluate the best CNC machinist

If you’re looking to attract new CNC machinists to your organization, you should consider improving your hiring process with pre-employment assessments. 

The market today is the candidate’s market: the better the candidate, the shorter they are on the market. On average, it takes around 49 days to hire a candidate for any engineering role. But you need to trim that time down because the best candidates don’t wait that long before finding another employer. 

One of the best ways to speed up your hiring process and reliably identify your strongest candidates is by implementing pre-employment assessments. 

A pre-employment assessment has many benefits, but here are the three most impactful ones: 

1. Fast solution

A conventional hiring process includes CV screening, meaning that your hiring managers need to go through hundreds of CVs to find a handful of candidates who might be a good match.

Not only is the process slow, but it’s unreliable because your hiring managers assess candidates’ abilities to write CVs rather than their CNC operating skills. Alternatively, the CNC Machinist (imperial measurements) test, enables you to focus on candidates’ demonstrable CNC skills.

2. Easy to use

While CV screening is slow and clunky, the CNC machinist (metric measurements) test is efficient and scalable. You can send all your applicants the test with a single click, and once your candidates complete the test you receive numerical results, making it easy to compare candidates.

3. Bias-free hiring process

Pre-employment tests eliminate the hiring manager’s bias creeping into your hiring process – because all candidates receive the same opportunity to prove their skills, and they are judged purely on their role-related abilities. 

Find the best CNC machinist with skills testing

Keeping a good CNC machinist at your company is no easy task; you will need to provide them with better opportunities than your competitors, along with a better salary. Attracting a great CNC machinist to your organization can be even more difficult. 

So don’t leave your hiring process to chance. Use the CNC Machinist (imperial measurements) test to evaluate the candidates and pick the right one.  Get started for free today.