Machines and vehicles
What does an Industrial Machinery Mechanic do?
Finding out why something has stopped working, and putting it right.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Tools, materials, your body.
- Largely on your own.
- Right or wrong, to a standard.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $64,100 a year, median
- Industrial Machinery Mechanics, Machinery Maintenance Workers, and Millwrights, May 2025
- Usually needs
- High school diploma or equivalent
- A year or two, often while earning something.
- Jobs
- +14% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing
What is good about it
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
- You can see what you did at the end of the day.
What people find hard about it
- Pressure while a line is stopped
- Shift and weekend cover
- Noise and heat
When the line stops, everyone watches you work.
Will machines take this job?
Hard for machines to take over. Diagnostics increasingly come from software, but the repair itself and the judgement about what is safe do not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Spend a shift with a factory maintenance team during a breakdown, not a quiet day.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.