Plant Operator salaries
Operators running the mobile plant that digs, pushes and loads material on a mine: excavators, dozers, graders, loaders, and the all-rounders who move between them.
Based on live job ads posted on FiFoDiDo, not a formal industry survey. Grouped by country, currency and pay period rather than converted or blended together.
What this role involves & typical requirements →
Not enough plant operator ads with salary data yet to show a reliable range. Browse live plant operator roles directly instead.
Figures come only from ads with salary data supplied by the employer, and reflect what's currently live on FiFoDiDo rather than total industry pay. They're not converted across currencies or pay periods, so a range shown in AUD/yr and one in USD/hr are deliberately kept separate. Countries are never pooled together. How we calculate salaries
Official data, not FiFoDiDo job ads
Official pay data
What people in the closest official occupations earn, from each country's statistics agency. These cover whole occupations, so use them as context, not as the pay for any one job.
AustraliaAUD · May 2025
| Occupation | Typical |
|---|---|
| Earthmoving plant operatorsAll industries | A$1,900/wk |
Typical is the median. Median weekly pay before tax for full-time, non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate, across all industries rather than mining alone. Only the median is published. Source: Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profiles, from ABS Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025. Copied 19 October 2026. CC BY 4.0; Jobs and Skills Australia, from Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
CanadaCAD · 2023-2024
| Occupation | Typical | Middle half |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy equipment operatorsAll industries | CA$32.50/hr | CA$27–CA$39.04/hr |
Typical is the median; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile. Hourly wages for the occupation across all industries in Canada, before tax. Overtime, bonuses and allowances are not included. Source: Job Bank wages, Employment and Social Development Canada (Statistics Canada survey data), 2023-2024. Copied 19 October 2026. Open Government Licence - Canada; contains information licensed under it.
United StatesUSD · May 2025
| Occupation | Typical | Middle half |
|---|---|---|
| Excavating and loading machine operators, surface miningIn mining · 20,900 employed | $57,700/yr | $48,460–$65,300/yr |
| Operating engineers and other equipment operatorsIn mining · 18,530 employed | $60,250/yr | $50,560–$72,780/yr |
Typical is the median; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile. Yearly wages for all employees in the occupation. They include base pay and production bonuses but not overtime or shift allowances, which add a lot on many mine sites. "In mining" means mining, except oil and gas (industry 212). Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Copied 19 October 2026. Public domain; credit to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
United KingdomGBP · April 2025 (provisional)
| Occupation | Typical | Middle half |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile machine drivers and operatives (includes excavator drivers)All industries · 35,000 employed | £37,864/yr | £30,136–£45,303/yr |
| Mining and quarry workers and related operativesAll industries | £38,301/yr | Not published |
Typical is the median; the middle half runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile. Gross yearly pay for full-time employees in the occupation across all industries, including overtime and bonuses. Where ONS hides a figure because the sample is small, it shows as not published. Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Table 14), April 2025 (provisional). Copied 19 October 2026. Open Government Licence v3.0; source: Office for National Statistics.