Occupations · Production
First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers
Directly supervise and coordinate the activities of production and operating workers, such as inspectors, precision workers, machine setters and operators, assemblers, fabricators, and plant and system operators. Excludes team or work leaders.
O*NET 30.3 Database (USDOL/ETA) · occupation code 51-1011.00
What it pays
A single “average salary” hides the spread. This is the whole distribution — the gap between the bottom and top bar is usually the number that matters.
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024 · national, cross-industry · annual wage
These are national figures, identical for every reader. The report recuts them for your metro area and ranks it among all of them.
Get yours →Pay over time
Median up 63% between 2003 and 2024, before inflation. The band shows the 10th to 90th percentile.
BLS OEWS, one release per year. Before May 2011 only national estimates were published, so geography detail starts there.
Where the jobs are
| Metro area | Median wage | Employed |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI | $72,760 | 22,410 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | $72,610 | 19,660 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA | $79,560 | 19,090 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX | $65,100 | 17,550 |
| Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX | $72,530 | 14,610 |
BLS OEWS May 2024, metropolitan estimates · the 5 areas with the most people in this occupation
Your metro area, and where it ranks
LockedAll metropolitan areas BLS publishes for this occupation, with your own city's median and its rank among them.
Open in your report →Typical education to enter: High school diploma or equivalent · BLS Employment Projections 2024–34
What people in this job actually do
Ordered by how important the work is rated.
- Enforce safety and sanitation regulations.
- Inspect materials, products, or equipment to detect defects or malfunctions.
- Keep records of employees' attendance and hours worked.
- Read and analyze charts, work orders, production schedules, and other records and reports to determine production requirements and to evaluate current production estimates and outputs.
- Plan and establish work schedules, assignments, and production sequences to meet production goals.
- Confer with other supervisors to coordinate operations and activities within or between departments.
- Interpret specifications, blueprints, job orders, and company policies and procedures for workers.
- Observe work and monitor gauges, dials, and other indicators to ensure that operators conform to production or processing standards.
- Direct and coordinate the activities of employees engaged in the production or processing of goods, such as inspectors, machine setters, or fabricators.
- Conduct employee training in equipment operations or work and safety procedures, or assign employee training to experienced workers.
- Evaluate employee performance.
- Confer with management or subordinates to resolve worker problems, complaints, or grievances.
O*NET 30.3 task ratings, importance scale
Skills that matter most
Importance, rated 1 to 5.
O*NET 30.3 skills, importance scale
Software and tools
A dot marks what O*NET flags as in demand.
O*NET 30.3 software skills · hot-technology flag
What your tools are worth
Occupation-based, not posting-based: how much employment, pay and projected growth sit behind each tool. It is not a count of job ads.
| Tool | Value | Spread across occupations |
|---|---|---|
| Extensible markup language XML | 81 | 59 → 87 occupations since 2015 |
| Microsoft Project | 75 | 125 → 201 occupations since 2015 |
| Microsoft Access | 71 | 265 → 372 occupations since 2015 |
What your tools are worth
LockedThe same score for every tool in this occupation, plus the ones you ticked and the ones you did not.
Open in your report →What this work is actually like
Conditions rated against the average across all occupations — only what makes this job different is listed.
O*NET 30.3 Job Zones
Working conditions that stand out
O*NET 30.3 work context, frequency scale · observed 2020-08
How people actually get in
Share of workers by the education they hold.
O*NET 30.2 education, training and experience · observed 2020-08
What kind of person the work suits
Occupational interest profile, rated 1 to 7.
O*NET 30.2 occupational interests (RIASEC)
Tasks O*NET flags as emerging
- Evaluate employee performance.
O*NET 24.3 emerging tasks
What you take with you
Skills rated for how well they transfer into other occupations.
O*NET 30.3 transferable skills, importance scale
Knowledge the work draws on
Abilities it leans on
O*NET 30.3 abilities and knowledge, importance scale
How this job is advertised
The same work is posted under many titles — this is what to search for.
O*NET 30.3 job titles reported for this occupation
Get this as a personal report
The same sourced evidence, recut for the closest published view of your city, state or industry, as a dated PDF.
Free page vs. the $29 report
The page above is a public national reference, identical for every reader — and we deliberately give away a lot of it. The report does three things this page cannot: it answers the question you type in your own words, using only figures that appear in the report with their sources; it ranks your city among all 445 metros instead of the twelve shown here; and it places your level on the employer pay ladder. Choose $49 for the wider comparison of industries, places and next moves, $99 to add named employers and the international purchasing-power index.
What changed since 2015
Comparing O*NET release 20.1 (2015-10-01) with 30.3 (2026-05-01). Signs, not colour alone, carry the meaning. 3 entries that were only relabelled between releases are left out.
Now listed 14
No longer listed 12
Diff across the O*NET releases held here in full since October 2015, following occupations through merges and retirements. O*NET re-surveys occupations on a rolling cycle, so “no change” can also mean “not re-surveyed”.
Related jobs
O*NET 30.3 related occupations
Also called
O*NET 30.3 alternative titles
The same work in Europe
| ESCO occupation | ISCO | Match |
|---|---|---|
| production supervisor | 3122.4 | exact |
| industrial assembly supervisor | 3122.3 | close |
| machine operator supervisor | 3122.4.9 | broader |
| plastic and rubber products manufacturing supervisor | 3122.4.14 | broader |
| metal production supervisor | 3122.4.11 | broader |
| footwear assembly supervisor | 3122.3.3 | broader |
| machinery assembly supervisor | 3122.3.4 | broader |
| paper mill supervisor | 3122.4.13 | broader |
| rolling stock assembly supervisor | 3122.3.6 | broader |
| aircraft assembly supervisor | 3122.3.1 | broader |
| animal feed supervisor | 3122.4.1 | broader |
| container equipment assembly supervisor | 3122.3.2 | broader |
| dairy processing technician | 3122.1 | broader |
| electrical equipment production supervisor | 3122.4.4 | broader |
| electronics production supervisor | 3122.4.5 | broader |
| footwear production supervisor | 3122.4.6 | broader |
| green coffee coordinator | 3122.4.7 | broader |
| leather goods production supervisor | 3122.4.8 | broader |
| leather wet processing department manager | 1321.1.1.6.2 | broader |
| malt house supervisor | 3122.4.10 | broader |
| print studio supervisor | 3122.4.16 | broader |
| refinery shift manager | 3134.5 | broader |
| vessel assembly supervisor | 3122.3.7 | broader |
| welding coordinator | 7212.4 | broader |
Official ESCO ↔ O*NET crosswalk (ESCO Secretariat with USDOL/ETA)
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