Key numbers (as of October 17, 2026):
- 10,068 open space-industry jobs across 57 companies tracked by SpaceJobs.
- 1,942 of them were posted in the last 14 days; 1,108 in the last 7.
- 870 are hands-on trades and technician roles: welders, electricians, machinists, inspectors and technicians.
- The middle half of posted trades pay runs $27.75–$41.50 an hour, with a median of $35.75/hr (from 427 postings that list pay).
- Space Coast trades postings had the highest median pay of any hub with enough data: $44.00/hr.
Who’s hiring
SpaceX (2,679 open roles) and Blue Origin (1,830) together account for almost half of every open job in the industry. They are followed by Rocket Lab (578), The Aerospace Corporation (423) and Relativity Space (365).
New postings over the last two weeks were led by Blue Origin with 396, followed by SpaceX (233), The Aerospace Corporation (127) and Rocket Lab (110).
| Hub | Open jobs |
|---|---|
| LA South Bay, CA | 3,259 |
| Seattle, WA | 1,217 |
| Space Coast, FL | 962 |
| Colorado | 762 |
| Central Texas | 546 |
| Starbase, TX | 488 |
| Bay Area, CA | 472 |
| Washington, DC | 321 |
| Huntsville, AL | 215 |
By role type, engineering makes up 5,711 openings. Business roles add 1,358, operations and support roles 1,156, internships 453, and launch and mission operations 187.
What trades pay
These figures use only pay ranges that employers publish in live postings, converted to hourly where a salary is posted (2,080 hours a year).
| Trade | Open | Median posted pay | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machinists | 106 | $41.50/hr | $31.25–$47.50 |
| Launch & pad technicians | 39 | $37.38/hr | $29.69–$41.50 |
| Quality & NDT inspectors | 128 | $37.26/hr | $30.00–$40.86 |
| Avionics & harness technicians | 68 | $36.00/hr | $32.38–$43.25 |
| Fabrication technicians | 43 | $35.34/hr | $26.00–$40.14 |
| Test technicians | 80 | $34.00/hr | $27.67–$41.50 |
| Maintenance & HVAC technicians | 140 | $34.00/hr | $27.75–$41.00 |
| Assembly & integration technicians | 198 | $32.39/hr | $26.00–$39.50 |
| Welders | 99 | $30.00/hr | $25.00–$40.00 |
Electricians posted a median of $41.50/hr, but only 6 of the 32 open roles list pay, so treat that figure with caution.
By location, the median posted trades pay is $44.00/hr on the Space Coast (12 ranges), $37.24/hr in Colorado (36) and $35.00/hr in LA’s South Bay (225). Starbase, Central Texas and Huntsville don’t have enough postings with pay ranges to give a figure. SpaceX’s Texas postings generally don’t list pay.
Senior and second-shift roles carry the highest ranges. At Cape Canaveral, Relativity Space posts a Senior Quality Inspector (Test & Launch) at $52–$78/hr, a Senior Machinist at $41.73–$62.60/hr and a Senior High Power Electrician at $37.60–$56.40/hr.
See the full, daily-updated breakdown in our space trades pay guide.
Starbase, Texas
Starbase has 488 open roles, all at SpaceX. 43 of them were posted in the last two weeks, and 64 are hands-on trades roles, led by maintenance technicians (22).
Housing remains the hard part. Starbase has about 500 residents, and more than 3,000 people work there, most of them commuting in daily on TX-4, the only road (Yahoo News). Brownsville–Harlingen median rents run about $819 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,039 for a two-bedroom (Rentometer, May 2026).
Our Starbase housing guide lists 43 places we checked by hand: 12 apartment communities, 10 extended-stay hotels, 9 RV parks and 8 furnished-rental options. More on where people live is in Moving to Starbase.
Space Coast, Florida
The Space Coast has 962 open roles: Blue Origin 766, SpaceX 111, Relativity Space 38 and ULA 14. 190 of them were posted in the last two weeks, more than four times as many as Starbase, and 122 are trades roles, including 36 inspector openings and 15 launch and pad technician roles.
The hiring matches Blue Origin’s announced $600 million upper-stage manufacturing expansion at its Rocket Park campus, which Florida said will support 500 jobs averaging over $98,000 a year (Florida Governor’s Office, May 22, 2026).
Rents are climbing with it. Average rent in Titusville was $1,570 as of October 2, up 9.6% from a year earlier (RentCafe). Our Space Coast housing guide lists 50 places to stay, from 12 extended-stay hotels to 6 RV parks.
Method
Figures come from SpaceJobs’ daily crawl of 57 employers’ own job boards (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workday and others) on October 17, 2026.
- “New” means the employer’s posting date falls within the window.
- A role counts as a trade when its title names a hands-on trade (welder, electrician, machinist, inspector, technician and similar), excluding engineering, management and design titles.
- Pay is the midpoint of each posted range; medians need at least 3 ranges.
The next weekly report is due Monday, October 26, with a feature article each Thursday in between.