Industrial machinery mechanic, maintenance worker, and millwright

National median pay

$64,100

per year · $30.82 per hour

May 2025

Projected employment change

+14%

2025–35

Much faster than average

Jobs in the United States

547,300

Projected openings each year: 51,900

Typical entry-level education

High school diploma or equivalent

On-the-job training

At least a year of on-the-job training for mechanics and maintenance workers; millwrights usually complete an apprenticeship of up to 4 years

What the occupation does

When a production line stops, it costs money by the minute, and this is the trade that gets it moving again. The work splits into three related jobs. Industrial machinery mechanics keep equipment in working order, often by finding problems before they stop the line. Machinery maintenance workers do the cleaning, lubricating, and adjusting that prevents failures. Millwrights install, dismantle, move, and reassemble heavy machinery, which is precision work: a machine that is a fraction out of alignment will destroy itself. Increasingly, this work includes the sensors, drives, and programmable controls that run modern equipment.

Common daily responsibilities

• Read technical manuals to understand how equipment and its controls work.
• Disassemble machinery to find the cause of a problem.
• Repair or replace broken or worn components.
• Run tests and initial batches to confirm a machine is working correctly.
• Detect small problems early through basic diagnostic testing.
• Adjust and calibrate equipment to the manufacturer's specifications.
• Clean, lubricate, and align machinery as part of planned maintenance.
• Move, install, and reassemble heavy machinery, keeping it level and aligned.
• Follow lockout and safety procedures, because industrial machinery can kill.

Typical work environments

• Manufacturing plants: food processing, automotive, electronics, packaging, and more.
• Power plants and refineries, where planned shutdowns concentrate the heaviest work.
• Construction sites, installing and aligning equipment as a millwright.
• Maintenance departments on rotating shifts, including nights and weekends.
• On call, because a stopped line does not wait for the next business day.

Skills and abilities needed

• Strong mechanical reasoning, and the ability to work out how a machine is meant to behave.
• Patience with precision: alignment, clearance, and torque all have a correct value.
• Basic electrical and controls knowledge, since machines are electronically driven.
• Willingness to get dirty, and to work in heat, noise, and tight spaces.
• Discipline with lockout and safety procedures, without exception.
• Ability to work under pressure when the line is down and everyone is waiting.

Ways to enter the occupation

• Entry-level maintenance job with on-the-job training

  The most common route into industrial machinery mechanics and maintenance work. A high school diploma, plus at least a year of supervised on-the-job training, is typical.

  Typical duration: At least 1 year of on-the-job training

• Millwright apprenticeship

  Millwrights usually learn through a registered apprenticeship, which combines paid work with classroom instruction and is the recognised route to journeyman millwright status.

  Typical duration: Up to 4 years

• Industrial maintenance certificate or associate degree

  Community colleges offer industrial maintenance technology programmes that cover mechanics, hydraulics, pneumatics, and basic controls. They can shorten the learning period and improve your chances at larger plants.

  Typical duration: 6 months to 2 years

• Military training

  Machinery repair and engineering specialties in the armed forces cover much of the same ground and map well to civilian industrial maintenance work.

  Typical duration: Varies

How long training takes

For industrial machinery mechanics and maintenance workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes at least a year of on-the-job training after a high school diploma. Millwrights usually complete an apprenticeship of up to four years, which is paid throughout. A technical certificate takes six months to two years and can shorten the learning period, particularly for the electrical and controls side of the work, which is where the trade has moved fastest.

Licensing and certification

This occupation is generally not licensed by the state, and there is no national licence. What matters instead is employer-issued qualification: many plants require their own authorisation before you may work on specific equipment, and some require recognised training in areas such as rigging, crane operation, welding, or electrical safety. Millwrights in some settings hold trade certification through their union or an industry body. Those credentials are voluntary in the sense that no state compels them, but they are often effectively required by the employer.

This describes the general pattern. It is not a statement about the rules in your state, and nothing here means a trade is licensed nationwide.

Do requirements differ by state?

Not for the occupation itself, since no state licenses industrial machinery mechanics. What does vary is which industries are present in your state and therefore which machines you would be working on: a state with heavy food processing, automotive assembly, or paper mills offers very different work from one without. Any crane, rigging, or electrical qualification attached to a particular job follows the employer and the site rules rather than the state.

How to find a legitimate program

For millwright work, search Apprenticeship.gov for registered programmes, which are the recognised route and are paid. For industrial maintenance training, ask a community college programme what equipment its lab actually has, whether it covers programmable controls and hydraulics, and which local employers hire from it. Ask whether the programme includes a work placement, because industrial maintenance is learned substantially by doing.

Career advancement

• Senior or lead mechanic, taking the hardest faults and mentoring newer workers.
• Specialisation: programmable controls and automation, hydraulics and pneumatics, vibration analysis and predictive maintenance, or millwright and rigging work.
• Maintenance planner or reliability engineer technician, moving from fixing failures to preventing them.
• Maintenance supervisor or plant engineering manager.
• Field service for an equipment manufacturer, working on their machines at customer sites.

Self-employment

Self-employment is uncommon, because the work is tied to a plant and its equipment, and it is normally performed by employees or by contract maintenance firms. Independent millwright and rigging contractors do exist as businesses, but they require heavy equipment, insurance, and often specialised certifications, which makes them substantial operations rather than one-person trades.

Self-employment usually brings its own requirements on top of the trade itself, such as a business registration, a contractor licence, insurance, or a bond. Those are separate from the occupational licence and are set by your state.

Related occupations

• Welder, cutter, solderer, and brazer
• Heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration technician
• Diesel service technician and mechanic
• Electrical and electronic engineering technologist and technician

Official resources and next steps

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Outlook Handbook

  The federal source for the pay, education, and employment projections shown on this page.

• Apprenticeship.gov — U.S. Department of Labor

  The official register of registered apprenticeship programmes. Search by trade and by state, and confirm that a programme is registered before you trust it.

• CareerOneStop — U.S. Department of Labor

  Official wage data for your own area, local training listings, and the American Job Center nearest you.

• O*NET OnLine — U.S. Department of Labor

  A detailed breakdown of the tasks, tools, and knowledge each occupation actually involves, maintained by the Department of Labor.

• U.S. Department of Labor

  Federal rules on wages, safety, and training, and the starting point for finding the state agency that governs a trade.