Supervisor of Mechanics and Installers Salary in New York: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A Supervisor of Mechanics and Installers in New York earns a median of $91,150 a year, or about $43.82 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most workers in this role land between $73,160 (25th percentile) and $118,550 (75th percentile), with the top 10 percent clearing $137,730. That median sits roughly $11,290 above the national figure for the job, which makes New York one of the stronger states to hold this title.

How New York compares to the national pay

The job sits under SOC code 49-1011, the front-line supervisors who run crews of mechanics, installers, and repairers. Nationally, the BLS puts the median for this role at $79,860 a year. New York’s median of $91,150 runs $11,290 higher, which works out to about 14.1 percent above the national mark. That is a real premium, and it tracks with the cost of doing business and living in the state’s larger metros.

The state mean, or average, comes in at $95,710, a touch above the median. When the mean sits higher than the median, it usually means a cluster of well-paid supervisors at the top is pulling the average up. You can see that in the spread: the bottom 10 percent of New York supervisors earn $59,750, while the top 10 percent earn $137,730. That is a gap of $77,980 between the floor and the ceiling, so where you sit on the experience curve matters a great deal in this state.

With 26,930 of these supervisors working across New York, this is not a thin niche. It is a sizeable occupation, which means real hiring, real turnover, and real room to move between employers when you want a raise.

It is worth being clear about what this $11,290 national premium does and does not mean. It tells you that the typical New York supervisor out-earns the typical supervisor nationwide by a solid margin. It does not mean every New York worker beats every out-of-state worker, because the state’s own range is wide. A supervisor sitting at New York’s 25th percentile of $73,160 actually earns less than the national median of $79,860. So the state premium is concentrated in the middle and upper tiers, and especially in the downstate metro covered in the metro section below. Knowing your own percentile is more useful than knowing the state median, because the median hides a $77,980 spread from floor to ceiling.

One more read on the figures: the median hourly of $43.82 lines up cleanly with the $91,150 annual median at a standard 2,080-hour work year. That consistency tells you BLS is treating this as a full-time, year-round salaried occupation, which matches how most maintenance supervisor roles are structured in New York. Overtime, on-call premiums, and shift differentials can push real annual earnings above the base figures, particularly in transit, utility, and 24-hour facility settings where coverage never stops.

Pay by experience level

The cleanest way to read this job’s pay ladder is through the BLS percentiles. A new supervisor, or one in a lower-cost region, tends to sit near the 10th to 25th percentile. As you build a track record running larger crews, hitting safety and uptime targets, and taking on budget responsibility, you climb toward the median and beyond. The 90th percentile is where seasoned supervisors at large operations and union shops tend to land.

The jump from early career to the median is worth about $17,990 a year. The jump from the median to experienced is even bigger at $27,400. That second leap is where supervisors who move into larger facilities, take on multiple crews, or shift into utility, transit, and aviation maintenance tend to separate from the pack. Hourly figures above are derived from the annual values at a standard 2,080-hour year and are approximate.

Look at the full arc and the story is encouraging for anyone early in the role. From the 10th percentile at $59,750 to the 90th at $137,730, a New York supervisor can roughly double their pay over a career without ever changing job title. That is a $77,980 climb, all inside the same SOC code. Few skilled-trade leadership tracks offer that kind of vertical range in a single state, and it is the reason this title rewards staying put and getting better rather than constantly hopping into adjacent jobs.

Where do the leaps come from in practice? The first one, from entry to early career, usually reflects simply proving you can hold a crew together and hit basic uptime and safety numbers. The move to the median tends to follow taking ownership of a maintenance budget, a preventive-maintenance program, or vendor and parts management. The largest leap, into the 75th and 90th percentiles, almost always involves scope: more direct reports, more sites, or a jump into a regulated high-stakes environment where a failure is measured in lost service rather than a single broken machine. Each step on the New York ladder is tied to a concrete expansion of responsibility, which is good news because it means the raises are earnable rather than purely tied to tenure.

Pay by metro area

New York is really two pay markets. The downstate New York City region pays well above the rest of the state, and the upstate metros cluster together at a lower band. Here is how the five largest metros for this role compare on median pay, using BLS metro data.

The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro is the giant here. It holds 24,570 of the state’s 26,930 supervisor jobs, about 91 percent of them, and pays a median of $97,560. That is $6,410 above the statewide median and $17,640 above the upstate floor at Rochester. If you are weighing a move, the downstate premium is real, but so is the cost of living that comes with it, which the take-home section below addresses directly.

Upstate, the four metros sit within a tight $2,440 band, from Rochester at $79,920 to Albany at $82,360. Albany edges out Buffalo and Syracuse, likely helped by state government facilities, transit, and institutional maintenance work in the capital region. For a supervisor who values a lower cost of living, these upstate markets can deliver a stronger real standard of living than the headline downstate number suggests.

It is also telling how thin the upstate markets are by headcount. Buffalo holds 1,840 of these jobs, Albany 1,770, Rochester 1,730, and Syracuse 1,370. Add the four together and you get 6,710 supervisor roles, barely more than a quarter of what the downstate metro carries on its own. For a job seeker that cuts two ways. Fewer roles means fewer openings at any given moment, so patience and networking matter more upstate. But it also means less competition per posting and employers who cannot easily replace a good supervisor, which can be a quiet source of negotiating power once you are in the door.

Notice too that every one of the four upstate metros pays a median above the national figure of $79,860, except Rochester which sits just $60 under it at $79,920. So even outside New York City, this role pays at or slightly above the national norm while costing far less to live in. That combination, national-level pay against upstate housing costs, is the strongest value case in the entire state for this occupation, and it is the kind of nuance a quick search result will miss.

Take-home pay after tax

Gross salary is the headline. Take-home is what lands in your account. New York is a state with its own income tax on top of federal tax and FICA, so the gap between gross and net is meaningful. The table below runs the four experience points through federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and New York state income tax for the 2026 tax year. Figures assume a single filer with standard deductions and no other adjustments.

At the median, a New York supervisor takes home $68,089 a year, or about $5,674 a month, after an effective combined tax rate near 25.3 percent. At the senior level the effective rate climbs to roughly 29.1 percent, which is the cost of progressive brackets stacking up. The federal portion grows fastest as income rises, while FICA flattens once earnings clear the Social Security wage base.

Trace the effective rate across all four rows and you can see the progression plainly. An entry-level supervisor at $59,750 keeps about 79.3 percent of gross, with a combined effective rate near 20.7 percent. By the experienced 75th-percentile point of $118,550, the effective rate has risen to about 27.7 percent, and the senior 90th-percentile earner at $137,730 lands near 29.1 percent. So roughly an extra 8.4 cents of every dollar goes to tax between the bottom and the top of this role’s range. The New York state tax line alone climbs from $2,681 at entry to $7,216 at the senior level, which is the part of your bill you could change by relocating to a no-tax state while keeping the same job.

Here is the cross-state comparison that matters most. Take the same $91,150 median salary and run it in Texas, a state with no personal income tax. In New York, the net take-home is $68,089. In Texas, that same gross leaves you with $72,510. The difference is $4,421 a year, which is exactly the New York state income tax line on the median. So a supervisor earning the New York median keeps $4,421 LESS than an identical earner in Texas, purely because of state income tax. That figure is the price of the New York address before you even factor in rent.

And rent is the number that decides everything. Net pay minus local housing is the figure that actually tells you how you’ll live. A downstate supervisor netting $5,674 a month who pays $2,800 in rent has a very different life from an upstate supervisor netting the same who pays $1,400. The state tax gap to Texas is real, but for most people the housing line dwarfs it. Before you accept an offer, model your own number with the New York paycheck calculator, then subtract your actual housing cost. If you want your full return filed cleanly with these brackets, TurboTax handles New York state and federal together.

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How to earn more in New York

The pay ladder for this role is steep, and the moves that push you up it are concrete. Here are the ones that show up in the data and in the field.

• Target the downstate metro. The New York-Newark-Jersey City region pays a $97,560 median, $6,410 above the statewide figure and $17,640 above the upstate floor. If your skills travel, downstate is where the dollars are.
• Climb from the median toward the 75th percentile. That move is worth $27,400 a year, from $91,150 to $118,550. It usually means taking on more crews, multi-site responsibility, or a higher-stakes maintenance environment like transit, utilities, or aviation.
• Move into regulated, high-uptime industries. Utility, rail, airline, and elevator maintenance shops in New York pay at the top of the range because downtime is expensive and licensing is strict. These are where the 90th-percentile $137,730 jobs live.
• Stack supervisory credentials. Certifications in maintenance management, OSHA safety leadership, and HVAC or industrial systems make the case for a higher band. You can pick up project-management and operations coursework through Coursera to back the promotion conversation.
• Use competing offers. With 26,930 of these jobs statewide and heavy demand downstate, a documented outside offer is the fastest lever on your base. Know your percentile before you negotiate.

Job outlook in New York

The clearest signal in the data is scale and concentration. New York supports 26,930 supervisor of mechanics and installers jobs, and 24,570 of them, about 91 percent, sit in the downstate New York-Newark-Jersey City metro. That concentration means the bulk of openings, raises, and lateral moves happen in and around the city, while the upstate metros each hold roughly 1,300 to 1,900 of these roles.

This is a supervisory, hands-on occupation tied to physical infrastructure, transit, building systems, fleets, and utilities, so the work does not offshore and is slow to automate. Demand follows the maintenance needs of a dense, aging built environment, which New York City has in abundance. To see current postings and pay ranges by employer, scan live listings on ZipRecruiter and filter by metro to compare downstate against upstate openings.

The 91 percent downstate concentration has a practical consequence for your career strategy. If you are based upstate and want to reach the higher pay bands, you have two routes. You can target the small number of premium employers in your own metro, often the regional transit authority, a major hospital system, a university, or a utility, where supervisory pay clusters near the top of the local range. Or you can plan a downstate move, where the $97,560 metro median and the deeper pool of 24,570 jobs give you far more shots at the 75th and 90th percentile roles. Both are valid. The first protects your cost of living, the second maximizes gross pay. The take-home section above is the tool for deciding which one actually leaves you better off.

Because BLS does not publish a separate growth projection inside this DATA, treat the outlook here as a read on structure rather than a forecast. What the numbers support is durability: a large installed base of 26,930 jobs, concentrated in essential maintenance work, in a state whose infrastructure constantly needs skilled supervision. That is a stable foundation to build a career on.

Related and higher-paying roles

It helps to see where this job sits next to its neighbors in New York. Both common comparison roles in the data actually pay less than a first-line mechanics supervisor here, which underlines how well this title is positioned in the state.

• A Production and Operating Supervisor in New York earns a median of $78,580. That is $12,570 LESS than a first-line mechanics supervisor in New York.
• An Inspector, Tester, and Sorter in New York earns a median of $49,990. That is $41,160 LESS than a first-line mechanics supervisor in New York.

So if you already hold this supervisor role at the New York median, you are ahead of both of these adjacent paths on pay. The bigger gains come from climbing within your own title’s percentile range rather than switching sideways.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025 (occupation 49-1011, state and metro estimates); take-home estimates use 2026 federal, FICA, and New York state tax parameters for a single filer. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.