Electrical engineer salary in 2026: BLS data, power vs semiconductor tracks, & how to push your pay higher

National pay breakdown: every percentile, annual & hourly

The BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey is the single most authoritative wage dataset in the US, it covers roughly 1.2 million establishments and is mandatory for sampled employers to complete. The May 2025 release was published 2026-04-30. Here is the full national distribution for SOC 17-2071:

The annual figures assume year-round full-time employment (2,080 hours) and exclude equity. That second caveat matters more for EEs than for most BLS SOCs: at semiconductor and FAANG hardware employers, RSU grants frequently add $50K-$200K per year to cash compensation. The BLS numbers are honest about cash but understate true total comp for the top quartile of the field.

By sub-discipline: power, semiconductor, RF, digital design

The single most useful slice of electrical engineer pay is not by state or experience: it is by sub-discipline. The same BS in EE qualifies you for tracks that pay $90K and tracks that pay $300K, depending on which set of electives, internships, and first jobs you stack. Here is the realistic spread:

The honest pattern: if you are choosing a sub-discipline today and pay is the top consideration, digital design and analog IC are the highest-paying tracks in the field, full stop. The catch is that they require strong VLSI / circuit-design coursework, often a master's degree, and concentrate in three metros (Bay Area, Austin, San Diego). Power utility is the opposite trade: lower ceiling, but stable demand in every state, clear PE-license career ladder, and no equity dependency. RF/microwave sits in the middle, with defense primes paying well for cleared specialists and very few unqualified candidates competing for the work.

By experience level: entry, mid-career, and late-career

The BLS OEWS does not publish wages by years-of-experience, so the percentile-to-experience mapping is an interpolation. Here it is using BLS percentiles, Salary.com tiered self-reported data, and NSPE Engineering Income Survey income-by-experience bands:

Where the curve bends: two real inflection points in EE pay. The first is at year 4-5 when you either earn the PE (utility, MEP, controls tracks) or pick up a deep specialization (RF tools, ASIC design flows, motor-drive control loops). The second is at year 10-12 when you either move into staff/principal IC scope or into engineering management. Linear progression with no sub-discipline depth tops out below median by year 8, which is the most common mistake new EEs make.

By state: where the wages run highest and where the jobs concentrate

Two different "best state" lists matter depending on what you are optimizing for. The top-paying states are dominated by high cost-of-living tech markets (California, Washington), defense and semiconductor concentrations (New Mexico, Texas), and federal-contractor hubs (Maryland, Virginia, DC). The top-employment states are where you have actual postings to apply to.

Top 10 states by mean annual wage

Top 10 states by total employment

The New Mexico premium is structural. NM mean of $155,400 sits 24% above the national mean because Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Lab, and Intel Rio Rancho all compete for a relatively small statewide EE pool of 2,560 workers. BEA regional price parities put Albuquerque cost of living at roughly 92% of US average, so the real-wage premium is closer to 35%. The catch is clearance: US citizenship is required at both labs, and a Q clearance (DOE equivalent of TS/SCI) is the entry credential for most of the highest-paying roles.

California is the volume play. 24,230 EEs in CA at a $151,180 mean is the biggest concentrated EE labor market in the country. The state's distribution is bimodal: Bay Area silicon and FAANG hardware on the high end, southern California aerospace/defense (Northrop, Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, JPL) on the high-middle, and inland utility and consulting work on the lower end. The 90th percentile in California is $217,760, the highest state 90th in this dataset.

By metro: top-paying metro areas in the US

Metro-level data narrows further than state averages. The top-paying electrical engineer metro in the US is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara at $189,370 mean (BLS OEWS May 2025), driven by Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Intel, Cisco, and the Bay Area semiconductor ecosystem. This is the highest-paid metro for any common engineering SOC in the BLS series.

The largest metros by EE employment are Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (8,970), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (4,930), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (4,160), Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos (4,070), and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (2,470). The Austin number is the one to watch: a near-doubling over the past five OEWS cycles, driven by Samsung Taylor, Tesla Gigafactory Texas, Apple Austin, and the broader CHIPS-funded fab expansion. Phoenix (Intel + TSMC) and Columbus, OH (Intel New Albany) are following the same trajectory at a one-cycle lag.

By industry: where the role pays the most

Industry assignment matters more than most EEs realize. Per BLS OEWS May 2025 industry-level estimates for SOC 17-2071:

The top-paying industries are concentrated, small-headcount niches: software publishers ($185,570 mean) employ EEs for SoC and silicon-adjacent firmware roles at companies that look more like Apple than like a traditional publisher. Oil & gas extraction ($172,280) pays its EEs for offshore electrical, downhole tooling, and refinery power systems work that demands extreme reliability and remote-site willingness. Transportation Equipment Manufacturing ($136,600 mean across 12,980 EEs) is the biggest combination of decent wage and decent volume, this is where Boeing, Lockheed, Tesla, Ford, GM, and Northrop fall.

The largest employer (Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services at 70,260 EEs, $126,270 mean) is where most postings live. This bucket covers engineering consulting (Burns & McDonnell, AECOM, Stantec, WSP), defense services contractors (Leidos, SAIC, CACI, Booz Allen), and FFRDCs (MITRE, JPL, RAND). The wage spread inside this bucket is enormous: a junior MEP EE at a small consultancy and a cleared lead at MITRE both count toward the 70,260 headcount.

Utilities (22,270 EEs, $122,280 mean) and Computer & Electronic Product Manufacturing (20,460 EEs, $133,860 mean) are the next two biggest. The Comp/Electronic bucket is where TSMC, Intel, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, and Micron fab payrolls fall, and it has the highest mean wage of any 5,000+ headcount industry for SOC 17-2071.

By employer: what specific companies pay

The BLS does not publish employer-specific wages, so this section pulls from Levels.fyi self-reported data (strongest for tech and semiconductor), H1B disclosure filings (strongest for cleared defense and FAANG), and broader posting-median data at the rest. Numbers below are total cash compensation unless otherwise noted; equity is separately called out where it materially changes the picture.

The pattern that matters: the same mid-level EE who would earn $120K at a utility or MEP firm can earn $170K base plus $150K in stock at a top-tier semiconductor, or earn 10-25% above the going rate at a defense prime if they hold a Secret or higher clearance. Sub-discipline and employer choice swing total compensation more than years of experience do.

The security clearance premium

Cleared electrical engineers consistently out-earn uncleared peers in the same role, metro, and experience band. Per ClearanceJobs.com annual compensation surveys and disclosed defense-contractor pay-band data, the rough premium scales like this:

You cannot apply for a clearance independently: a cleared employer sponsors the investigation after they make you a conditional offer. The practical path for a new-grad EE who wants the clearance premium is to start at a defense prime in a non-cleared role, accept their sponsorship for a Secret in year 1-2, and then either move into a cleared role internally or jump to a higher-paying cleared role externally once the clearance is granted. The clearance itself remains "active" with the granting agency for 2 years after you leave the sponsoring employer, which gives you portability.

Year-over-year wage trend

BLS OEWS releases roll one year at a time. Here is how electrical engineer pay has moved across the last three releases:

For context: IEEE-USA's most recent salary survey reported a similar high-single-digit median increase for full-time EE members, and US Bureau of Labor Statistics ECI data showed all-private-industry wage growth at roughly 3.5% over the same window. Electrical engineer wage growth is running above the broader engineering and all-industry rates, mostly because of three concurrent demand shocks: CHIPS Act fab construction, AI hardware buildout at hyperscalers and semiconductor design houses, and grid-modernization spending at utilities.

How to push your electrical engineer salary higher: three real levers

Lever 1: Specialize into RF, digital design, or analog IC instead of generalist power

The single biggest in-career lever is sub-discipline. A generalist EE doing utility T&D or MEP design tops out at around $130K-$140K outside of high-COL metros. The same EE who builds depth in RF/microwave, FPGA/ASIC design, or analog IC moves into a $150K-$200K base band with FAANG-tier total comp on top. The practical path is to anchor your second or third role at an employer where the work is concentrated in the sub-discipline (Qualcomm for RF, Nvidia or AMD for digital design, Texas Instruments or Analog Devices for analog), stack two to three years of repeated project experience, and then either stay or move into a senior IC role at a peer. The toolchain proficiency (Cadence Virtuoso for analog, Synopsys/Cadence for ASIC, Keysight ADS for RF) becomes resume-portable across the field.

Lever 2: Take a Secret or TS/SCI clearance at a defense prime

Per ClearanceJobs.com survey data, a Secret adds roughly $8K-$15K and TS/SCI adds $25K-$40K over an uncleared EE in the same role and metro. The leverage is largest in the Northern Virginia, Maryland, Huntsville AL, and Colorado Springs clusters where defense and intel-community work concentrates. You cannot self-apply, so the play is: take a non-cleared role at Lockheed, Northrop, Raytheon, BAE, L3Harris, MITRE, Aerospace Corporation, or one of the FFRDCs, accept their clearance sponsorship in year 1-2, and then capture the premium either internally or via a lateral move to a cleared-required role at a peer. The clearance also unlocks Sandia, Los Alamos, JPL, and similar high-paying lab work in geographies where the supply pool is thin.

Lever 3: Move to a CHIPS-Act fab or a FAANG hardware org for the equity stack

The BLS data captures cash compensation. It does not capture the $50K-$200K annual RSU grants that semiconductor and FAANG hardware employers stack on top of base. The structural difference between $130K total comp at a utility and $350K total comp at Nvidia is almost entirely equity. The cleanest plays once you have 3-5 years of EE experience: TSMC Arizona, Intel Ohio, Samsung Texas, or Micron New York for the CHIPS-funded fab roles (significant relocation incentives, on-call demanding but pay strong), or any silicon or hardware role at Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Marvell, or Meta Reality Labs for the FAANG-tier total comp. The post-IPO total-comp uncertainty is real (RSUs are not cash), but historically the equity component has more than made up for it at the top-tier semiconductor employers.

Electrical engineer salary vs adjacent roles

Useful for orienting your next career move:

Two clean step-ups inside the field: (1) move from generalist EE into Computer Hardware Engineer (SOC 17-2061) territory by stacking VLSI / digital design depth, the median jumps from $120,630 to $155,580, or (2) move from EE into a controls or robotics engineer role at a high-value automation employer if your background is closer to power electronics or mechatronics. See our controls engineer career guide and electronics engineer salary report for the adjacent paths.

Sources & methodology

All wage and employment data on this page is sourced from primary US government publications and disclosed compensation data, retrieved 2026-05-28:

• BLS OEWS, 17-2071 Electrical Engineers, May 2025 national release.
• BLS OEWS state-level estimates (oesm25st.zip), used for all state tables.
• BLS OEWS metropolitan area estimates (oesm25ma.zip), used for metro tables.
• BLS OEWS industry-level estimates (oesm25in4.zip), used for industry tables.
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Electrical & Electronics Engineers, for 2024-2034 employment projections.
• BEA Regional Price Parities, used for cost-of-living context in state and metro discussion.
• Levels.fyi, Hardware Engineer, used for FAANG and semiconductor total-comp ranges.
• IEEE-USA Salary & Fringe Benefit Survey, used for member-reported income bands and PE premium estimates.
• NSPE Engineering Income Survey, used for PE-licensure income context.
• ClearanceJobs.com Compensation Survey, used for cleared-engineer premium data.
• Salary.com, Electrical Engineer, used for experience-tiered self-reported benchmarks.

Employer-specific ranges in the "By employer" table are synthesized from a mix of Levels.fyi self-reported total compensation, H1B Labor Condition Application disclosures, and published job postings. Treat them as ranges representative of the band, not as authoritative offers. Total compensation at semiconductor and FAANG-hardware employers regularly exceeds the base ranges shown by 50-150% via equity grants the BLS dataset does not capture.