What a industrial engineer earns, by metro

Median pay for industrial engineers runs from $63,280 in Mayaguez to $171,910 in Anchorage — a 2.72× range across 468 metropolitan areas. The national median of $102,440 sits inside that range but describes no particular market.

What the percentile band tells you

Ten per cent of industrial engineers earn below $74,370 and ten per cent above $159,860 — a 2.15× band. The upside from median to 90th percentile is 56%, which is a normal amount of room for experience and specialisation to matter. An offer below the 25th percentile is worth questioning; one above the 75th is worth taking seriously.

Where the money is

Anchorage (AK) leads and Mayaguez (PR) trails, but the gap is modest. For a role like this the more useful comparison is not between cities but between the 10th and 90th percentile within one — see the band above.

Highest paying metros

Lowest paying metros

Columbus is the cluster

Columbus has 7.76× the national concentration of industrial engineers — the densest market in the country for this role, with 910 employed locally. Pay there is $97,480, which does not put it near the top of the pay table. Concentration and compensation are different things — a dense market is easier to get hired in and easier to move around within, but the competition that makes it dense also caps what employers need to offer.

Where the role is most concentrated

Largest employers by metro

Current openings

About this data

Figures come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme, May 2025 release, SOC code 17-2112. OEWS surveys employers, so it reports what is actually paid rather than what job advertisements claim, and it excludes the self-employed. Estimates cover 468 of 528 metropolitan areas — near-complete coverage, which means the ranges above are reliable rather than drawn from a handful of markets. Read the methodology.