Top Metros for Industrial Production Managers: New York Ranks #1 While Smaller Markets Offer the Highest Pay

For industrial production managers, the national context sets a useful baseline: a median annual salary of $126,060, national employment of 246,250, and a projected national employment growth rate of 1.9%. Against that backdrop, the top 10 metros in LaborCove’s rankings all feature median salaries above the national median, along with a wide range of local employment counts and Geography Scores. New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the #1 metro rank with a LaborCove Geography Score of 72.90, a median salary of $151,630, and employment of 7,220. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA ranks #2 with the highest local employment in the top 10 at 9,120, a median salary of $128,540, and a Geography Score of 66.76. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ranks #3 with the highest median salary in the top 10 at $171,140 and a Geography Score of 64.66, despite a smaller local employment count of 2,210. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN (#4) and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA (#5) both combine six-figure salaries with mid-range top‑10 Geography Scores. Chicago’s median salary of $129,840 is close to Los Angeles, and its 8,850 employment count is only slightly below Los Angeles’s 9,120. San Francisco’s median salary of $164,420 sits between San Jose’s $171,140 and Boston-Cambridge-Newton’s $153,210 while its employment count of 2,990 is higher than both San Jose and Manchester-Nashua. The lower half of the top 10 shows how different combinations of salary and employment can still yield competitive rankings. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH (#6) and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (#7) have similar median salaries of $153,210 and $151,580, respectively, and nearly identical employment counts of 3,500 and 3,400. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (#8) and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX (#9) post median salaries of $132,990 and $133,870 and employment counts of 5,890 and 6,060. Manchester-Nashua, NH rounds out the list at #10 with a Geography Score of 53.72 and the smallest top‑10 employment count of 700, paired with the highest median salary in the top 10 at $174,360. These results underscore that no single metric explains the rankings. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim has the largest employment count in the top 10 yet ranks below New York-Newark-Jersey City, while San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and Manchester-Nashua post the highest median salaries but do not occupy the #1 spot. For industrial production managers comparing locations, the key takeaway is that top‑ranked metros differ in how they balance salary, employment scale, and overall Geography Score, and those tradeoffs are visible in the numbers for each metro.

At the national level, industrial production managers earn a median annual salary of $126,060, with 246,250 people employed in this occupation. LaborCove’s data also indicates a projected national employment growth rate of 1.9% for industrial production managers. These national figures provide a benchmark for comparing metros. Every top‑10 metro in this article has a median salary above the national median, but they differ substantially in their employment counts and Geography Scores. The comparison helps highlight which locations sit closest to national norms and which diverge most strongly, based on the available data.

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ holds the #1 spot in LaborCove’s metro rankings for industrial production managers, with a Geography Score of 72.90. Its median salary of $151,630 is above the national median of $126,060, and its employment count of 7,220 is among the larger values in the top 10. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, ranked #2, has the highest employment count in the top 10 at 9,120, alongside a median salary of $128,540 and a Geography Score of 66.76. While Los Angeles has a larger employment count than New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York maintains a higher Geography Score and a higher median salary based on the supplied data. The difference between these two metros illustrates that having the largest employment count does not automatically produce the highest LaborCove Geography Score. For industrial production managers comparing the two, the data points to a tradeoff between New York’s higher score and salary and Los Angeles’s larger local employment count.

Two California tech‑adjacent metros, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, appear in the top five. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ranks #3 with a Geography Score of 64.66, a median salary of $171,140, and employment of 2,210. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 62.45, a median salary of $164,420, and employment of 2,990. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has a higher median salary than San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont but a smaller employment count. Both metros have higher median salaries than Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, which has a median salary of $128,540 and an employment count of 9,120. This shows that within California’s top‑ranked metros, higher salaries are not necessarily associated with larger employment counts. Nationally, both San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont sit well above the national median salary of $126,060, while their employment counts remain well below the top‑10 high of 9,120 observed in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN ranks #4 with a Geography Score of 64.31, a median salary of $129,840, and an employment count of 8,850. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH ranks #6 with a Geography Score of 57.75, a median salary of $153,210, and an employment count of 3,500. Chicago’s employment count of 8,850 is slightly below Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 9,120 but higher than New York-Newark-Jersey City’s 7,220. Chicago’s median salary of $129,840 is close to Los Angeles’s $128,540 and modestly above the national median of $126,060. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH, by contrast, has a higher median salary than Chicago-Naperville-Elgin at $153,210 versus $129,840 but a smaller employment count of 3,500 compared with Chicago’s 8,850. Boston’s employment count is slightly above Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue’s 3,400, highlighting a cluster of metros in the middle of the top 10 that combine mid‑range employment counts with salaries comfortably above the national median.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA ranks #7 with a Geography Score of 56.43, a median salary of $151,580, and employment of 3,400. Both its median salary and employment count are close to Boston-Cambridge-Newton’s, which posts a median salary of $153,210 and employment of 3,500. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX holds the #8 rank with a Geography Score of 56.16, a median salary of $132,990, and employment of 5,890. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX follows at #9 with a Geography Score of 55.93, a median salary of $133,870, and employment of 6,060. Houston has a slightly higher median salary and a larger employment count than Dallas based on the supplied data. All three metros—Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands—report median salaries above the national median of $126,060, yet their rankings spread from #7 to #9. This underscores that LaborCove’s Geography Score captures more than salary alone, as metros with higher salaries or employment counts do not always rank higher in the overall top 10.

Manchester-Nashua, NH ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 53.72, a median salary of $174,360, and employment of 700. Its employment count is the smallest among the top 10 metros, while its median salary is the highest in the top 10. Compared with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara’s median salary of $171,140 and employment count of 2,210, Manchester-Nashua offers a higher median salary but a smaller employment base. It also has a higher median salary than San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont’s $164,420 and New York-Newark-Jersey City’s $151,630, despite ranking below those metros overall. These contrasts show that within the top 10, very high salaries can appear both in large metros such as New York-Newark-Jersey City and in smaller employment markets such as Manchester-Nashua. For industrial production managers, this highlights the importance of looking directly at each metro’s salary, employment, and Geography Score combination rather than assuming a simple relationship between any one metric and overall rank.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for industrial production managers are built from structured labor‑market data and our proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. National figures in this article reflect an OEWS observation period of May 2025 for industrial production managers (occupation code 11-3051), with a median annual salary of $126,060 and national employment of 246,250. The projected national employment growth rate of 1.9% is a separate national‑level occupational projection and is not an OEWS observation. For metro areas, LaborCove uses the latest available median annual salary, employment counts, and other factors to compute a LaborCove Geography Score and rank each geography. In this article, we focus on the top 10 ranked metros out of 375 with available data for this occupation. The Geography Score reflects LaborCove’s integrated view of a metro’s labor‑market position for the occupation, but the underlying weights and components are not disclosed here. Because the score aggregates multiple measures, a metro with the highest salary or the largest employment count will not necessarily rank #1 overall. These rankings are designed as a structured input to career planning rather than a prescription. Industrial production managers should interpret LaborCove’s results alongside their own priorities, such as preferred industries, personal circumstances, and non‑labor‑market considerations that are outside the scope of this dataset.