Highway Maintenance Workers
SOC 47-4051 · 2024-2034
Maintain highways, municipal and rural roads, airport runways, and rights-of-way. Duties include patching broken or eroded pavement and repairing guard rails, highway markers, and snow fences. May also mow or clear brush from along road, or plow snow from roadway.
How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.
What California expects of this job
- Typical pay in California
- $61,194per year
- Projected openings
- 6,590
- Projected change
- +4.9%
- Usually needs
- High school diploma or equivalent
Skills this work uses most
O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.
- Operation and Control
- Operations Monitoring
- Monitoring
- Coordination
- Complex Problem Solving
- Speaking
Pay by region
| Region | Typical pay in California | Projected openings |
|---|---|---|
| San Rafael MD (Marin County) | $84,206 | 50 |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties) | $79,243 | 280 |
| Vallejo MSA (Solano County) | $77,174 | 70 |
| Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County) | $76,916 | 70 |
| Salinas MSA (Monterey County) | $69,752 | 100 |
| San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County) | $68,969 | 90 |
| Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties) | $68,349 | 510 |
| Napa MSA (Napa County) | $67,075 | 50 |
| Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County) | $66,787 | 70 |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties) | $66,149 | 460 |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) | $62,320 | 550 |
| Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County) | $60,026 | 340 |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County) | $60,010 | 1,530 |
| Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County) | $58,892 | 120 |
| Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties) | $56,956 | 150 |
| Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties) | $56,081 | 180 |
| North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties) | $56,081 | 190 |
| Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County) | $56,081 | 70 |
| Redding MSA (Shasta County) | $56,081 | 80 |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County) | $56,081 | 280 |
| North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties) | $54,342 | 270 |
| Chico MSA (Butte County) | $54,239 | 70 |
| El Centro MSA (Imperial County) | $54,228 | 30 |
| Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties) | $51,655 | 90 |
| San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties) | $50,280 | 520 |
| Merced MSA (Merced County) | $49,421 | 50 |
| Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County) | $49,421 | 80 |
| Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County) | $47,651 | 50 |
| Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County) | Not reported | 50 |
What the pay actually ranges across
- The lowest-paid tenth earn under
- $45,993
- A quarter earn under
- $50,892
- Half earn under
- $61,194
- Three quarters earn under
- $78,583
- The highest-paid tenth earn over
- $86,810
A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.
Similar work
O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.
| Occupation | Typical pay in California | Projected openings | Projected change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators | $89,521 | 33,360 | +7% |
| Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators | $85,382 | 1,280 | +7.1% |
| Construction Laborers | $61,903 | 111,420 | +10.2% |
| Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners | $56,716 | 3,350 | +15.6% |
| Maintenance and Repair Workers, General | $58,612 | 151,500 | +7.3% |
Programs that train for this job — 1
Agriculture - Equipment Operations and Maintenance Certificate
Shasta College · Redding · $1,856