Agricultural Equipment Operators
Career Cluster
Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources
Focuses on the essential elements of life: food, water, land, and air. This field includes careers like farming, ranching, geology, and more. It also encompasses jobs in the fields of wind, solar, oil, and gas.
Learn more about this clusterAt a glance
Expected pay range
Expected pay range
This represents the median earnings for this career in the selected county or state. In the range shown, 25% of workers earned less than the bottom salary and 25% earned more than the top salary. Data is provided by the Texas Workforce Commission.
Monthly cost of living
These numbers give you an idea of how much you can spend each month on common expenses with this salary. Percentages are the average a person with no children spends according to data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (external link opens new tab) These numbers are a starting point and will differ person to person.
Your actual expenses may differ from those listed. You’ll need to account for the amount taken out in taxes each month. Learn more about income tax expenses. (external link opens new tab) Your student loan payments may also differ. To calculate your student loan payments, use the federal student loan repayment estimator. (external link opens new tab)
About agricultural equipment operators
What they do
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.
Other titles
Baler Operator, Cutter Operator, Equipment Operator, Farm Equipment Operator, Hay Baler, Loader Operator, Packing Tractor Machine Operator, Rake Operator, Sprayer, Windrower Operator
Skills they need
- 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.
- 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.
Licenses and Certifications they may hold
How to decide which one is right? That depends on an individual’s career path, specialty, and resources.
Certifications
Certifications may be available for this career and can help build knowledge and skills in specific job roles. Explore available certifications (external link opens new tab)
Similar careers
View careers in the same field as agricultural equipment operators.
Conveyor Operators and Tenders
In demand
In demand careers have high-growth, high-demand, and emerging jobs critical to Texas. They are based on economic indicators like in demand industries, labor market trends, and economic conditions, provided by the Texas Workforce Commission.
Control or tend conveyors or conveyor systems that move materials or products to and from stockpiles, processing stations, departments, or vehicles. May control speed and routing of materials or products.
Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Set up, operate, or tend continuous flow or vat-type equipment; filter presses; shaker screens; centrifuges; condenser tubes; precipitating, fermenting, or evaporating tanks; scrubbing towers; or batch stills. These machines extract, sort, or separate liquids, gases, or solids from other materials to recover a refined product. Includes dairy processing equipment operators.
Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse
Manually plant, cultivate, and harvest vegetables, fruits, nuts, horticultural specialties, and field crops. Use hand tools, such as shovels, trowels, hoes, tampers, pruning hooks, shears, and knives. Duties may include tilling soil and applying fertilizers; transplanting, weeding, thinning, or pruning crops; applying pesticides; or cleaning, grading, sorting, packing, and loading harvested products. May construct trellises, repair fences and farm buildings, or participate in irrigation activities.
Machine Feeders and Offbearers
Better pay
Median salary for this career is higher than the median salary of all careers in the county selected. Salary data is provided by the Texas Workforce Commission.
In demand
In demand careers have high-growth, high-demand, and emerging jobs critical to Texas. They are based on economic indicators like in demand industries, labor market trends, and economic conditions, provided by the Texas Workforce Commission.
Feed materials into or remove materials from machines or equipment that is automatic or tended by other workers.