Agricultural Equipment Operators
Drive and control equipment to support agricultural activities such as tilling soil; planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops; feeding and herding livestock; or removing animal waste. May perform tasks such as crop baling or hay bucking. May operate stationary equipment to perform post-harvest tasks such as husking, shelling, threshing, and ginning.
A wage reference for United States.
Published wage percentiles describe a distribution within the source occupation group. They provide context for a career decision; employer packages and job offers have their own terms.
This wage group may include multiple detailed occupations. The figures are for the source group, which may be broader than Agricultural Equipment Operators. They are not an exact-title, employer, experience or seniority match.
May 2025 · USD · United States. Annual and hourly figures are shown only when the source publishes them; neither is calculated from the other.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage data, distributed through the O*NET® OnLine service.
Annual wage thresholds
USD per year
Hourly wage thresholds
USD per hour
| Percentile | Annual wage (USD/year) | Hourly wage (USD/hour) |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $33,500 | $16.11 |
| 25th | $36,810 | $17.70 |
| 50th · Median | $41,730 | $20.06 |
| 75th | $48,100 | $23.12 |
| 90th | $58,650 | $28.20 |
“≥” means at least the published amount; “≤” means at most that amount. These are bounds, not exact values. “Not published” means the source did not provide that figure. Occupational wages follow the source definition and do not establish an employer’s base salary, equity or total compensation.
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What this career involves.
Occupation definitions describe common work. Responsibilities and requirements vary by employer and specific job.
Selected title examples
Expand more title examples (48)
Typical tasks
- Load and unload crops or containers of materials, manually or using conveyors, handtrucks, forklifts, or transfer augers.
- Mix specified materials or chemicals, and dump solutions, powders, or seeds into planter or sprayer machinery.
- Spray fertilizer or pesticide solutions to control insects, fungus and weed growth, and diseases, using hand sprayers.
- Observe and listen to machinery operation to detect equipment malfunctions.
- Manipulate controls to set, activate, and adjust mechanisms on machinery.
- Operate or tend equipment used in agricultural production, such as tractors, combines, and irrigation equipment.
Expand more tasks (11)
- Adjust, repair, and service farm machinery and notify supervisors when machinery malfunctions.
- Attach farm implements such as plows, discs, sprayers, or harvesters to tractors, using bolts and hand tools.
- Load hoppers, containers, or conveyors to feed machines with products, using forklifts, transfer augers, suction gates, shovels, or pitchforks.
- Direct and monitor the activities of work crews engaged in planting, weeding, or harvesting activities.
- Operate towed machines such as seed drills or manure spreaders to plant, fertilize, dust, and spray crops.
- Weigh crop-filled containers, and record weights and other identifying information.
- Walk beside or ride on planting machines while inserting plants in planter mechanisms at specified intervals.
- Drive trucks to haul crops, supplies, tools, or farm workers.
- Guide products on conveyors to regulate flow through machines, and to discard diseased or rotten products.
- Position boxes or attach bags at discharge ends of machinery to catch products, removing and closing full containers.
- Irrigate soil, using portable pipes or ditch systems, and maintain ditches or pipes and pumps.
Skills used in this work
- Operation and Control
- Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Troubleshooting
- Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Equipment Maintenance
- Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
- Quality Control Analysis
- Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
Expand more skills (29)
- Repairing
- Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Equipment Selection
- Determining the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Management of Personnel Resources
- Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Negotiation
- Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Mathematics
- Using mathematics to solve problems.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Science
- Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
- Management of Material Resources
- Obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
- Technology Design
- Generating or adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs.
- Installation
- Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or programs to meet specifications.
- Management of Financial Resources
- Determining how money will be spent to get the work done, and accounting for these expenditures.
- Operations Analysis
- Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
- Programming
- Writing computer programs for various purposes.
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