Boeing salaries: From CEO to engineers

Boeing is one of the largest aircraft makers in the world. It runs a complex business of making aircraft for airlines and militaries, while running a separate division for services that support customers’ needs. The company requires tens of thousands of skilled professionals, from executive management to technical staff.

Here’s who gets paid the most and how much union members earn. 

Who are Boeing’s highest-paid executives?

Boeing’s top executives also tend to be its highest-paid employees.

In 2025, CEO Kelly Ortberg had the highest annual salary, at $1.5 million, and total compensation — usually cash and/or stock awards for meeting internal company performance targets — of almost $24 million. Jesus Malave, the newly appointed CFO, was the second-most compensated, at $20 million, which included an $8 million bonus to his salary of almost $400,000.

Other executives had salaries exceeding $650,000 but had lower total compensation. 

Boeing’s highest-paid employees

Related: How many employees does Boeing have?

What is Boeing’s median compensation & CEO pay ratio?

With Ortberg’s total compensation of $23.58 million, and the median employee compensation of $141,933, Boeing’s CEO pay ratio is 166 to 1, which is the same multiple as Nvidia’s — the biggest publicly traded company with a market capitalization nearing $5 trillion.

How much do Boeing’s union members make?

Boeing employed about 182,000 people, of which around 72,000 were union members, according to its 2025 annual report. Many work as technicians and engineers, mainly at the company’s Seattle and St. Louis-area facilities and elsewhere, to build commercial and military aircraft, spacecraft, and weapons. 

A tooling mechanic position with little experience listed on Boeing’s career page lists an hourly range of $30 to $53.27 in Berkeley, Missouri (which is in St. Louis). Based on a 40-hour workweek, that’s equivalent to yearly pay of $62,400 to $110,802.

The average annual pay for jobs in the United States in the first quarter of 2026 was $64,220, based on weekly earnings compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Related: How many employees does Home Depot have?

Terms of pay and benefits are typically set in a collective bargaining agreement between a union and Boeing. Union pay tends to be higher than the national average, and unions work on behalf of members to ensure that pay is sufficient to cover rising living expenses. 

For example, in November 2025, about 3,200 members of IAM District 837 (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) at Boeing in the St. Louis area voted to ratify a new 5-year contract with Boeing. Terms of the new CBA included an immediate 8% pay increase, followed by a 4% raise every year until 2029. The average annual base pay would increase from $75,000 to $109,000, the Missouri Independent newspaper reported, citing a Boeing executive. 

Union members there worked on fighter aircraft, namely the F-15 Eagle and the F/A-18 Hornet. The 101-day-long strike — a walkout over the rising cost of living and other concerns — was the longest at Boeing since 1948, according to Herald Publications. 

Among non-union positions, the pay can be much higher since no pension plan is involved. An electrical engineer position in the Defense, Space & Security (BDS) organization in Tukwila, Washington, with at least nine years of experience, pays from $146,200 to $197,800.

More on Boeing:

• Boeing’s dividend & stock split history explained 
• Where are Boeing’s headquarters? Its major hubs explained
• Boeing stock ownership: Institutional and executive shareholders

Does Boeing offer a pension plan?

Boeing said in its 2025 annual report that many of its employees had earned benefits under defined benefit pension plans. Still, like many corporations in the U.S., pensions are being phased out in favor of other retirement plans that aren’t as costly for companies over the long term. 

Boeing said that the majority of employees who had participated in defined benefit pension plans were transitioning to a company-funded defined contribution retirement savings plan, which usually means a 401(k). The company plans to use common stock in lieu of cash to fund its contributions to 401(k) plans.

Does Boeing promote from within?

According to various online posts, promotions within Boeing differ between union and non-union employees. In a post from jobs review website Glassdoor, promotions can be slow due to the bureaucracy within the company. In a post on Reddit, contributors remarked that an employee’s manager would usually need to advocate for that employee receiving a promotion, but company politics can hamper the process.

Related: Home Depot salaries: From customer sales rep to CEO