Pay explorer
What robot training work pays, in real numbers
The honest answer: it depends on the work, where it is and how it is paid. Recording your own chores at home is often paid per accepted minute of video, while on-site robot operator and safety-driver roles post hourly rates. Here is the whole map.
, RobotTraining.jobs shows 1,157 robot training jobs open, typically paying $20 to $45 an hour (median $25).
- Saildrone
- Saronic
- Kodiak AI
- TELUS Digital AI Community
- RemoExperts
- Sovrano AI
- Perle
- 1X Technologies
- Stack AV
- Aurora Innovation
- Zipline
- RoboForce
- Sunday Robotics
- Amazon Prime Air
- Anduril Industries
- Figure AI
- DoorDash Labs
- Nidus
- Pickle Robot
- HireArt
- Shield AI
- AeroVect
- Ambi Robotics
- Matternet
- Scout AI
- Gatik
- Nuro
- Transdev
- Dyna Robotics
- Waabi
- Tesla
- Nimble Robotics
- Tutor Intelligence
- Physical Intelligence
- Sama
- Avride
- Skyports Drone Services
- 120ft
- Adexis
- Agility Robotics
- Allen Control Systems
- ALTEN Technology USA
- Applied Intuition
- Apptronik
- Arctic Engines
- Asimov
- Atlas Capture
- AY Robots
- Bedrock Robotics
- Boston Dynamics
- Bot Auto
- Built Robotics
- Carbon Robotics
- CHAOS Industries
- Cobalt Robotics
- Contracted AI
- Corvus Robotics
- Cota Robotics
- Dexmate
- Dexory
- Dexterity
- Diligent Robotics
- DoorDash Tasks
- EgoVista
- Enact Intelligence
- Figure Index
- Flambra
- Formic
- Foundation Robotics
- FS Studio
- Gecko Robotics
- Generalist AI
- Genesis AI
- Handshake AI
- Havoc AI
- HighFive
- Hub.xyz
- Human Archive
- Human Motion Data
- Humanoid
- iMerit
- Instawork
- ISEE
- JumpTask
- Kargo
- Keywords Studios
- Kled
- Latitude AI
- Locus Robotics
- Luel
- Mach Industries
- Manna
- Maven Robotics
- May Mobility
- Mercor
- Mind Robotics
- Mindrift
- Monumental
- Motional
- Neros
- Noble Machines
- Objectways
- OpenTrain AI
- Orchard Robotics
- OSARO
- Overland AI
- Path Robotics
- Performance Drone Works
- PlusAI
- Prolific
- Pronto
- Pyka
- Reliable Robotics
- REVEL
- Rhoda AI
- RIVR
- RobCo
- Rugged Robotics
- RWS
- Sanctuary AI
- Saturn Labs
- Scale AI
- Sensei Robotics
- Sereact
- Shift
- Skydio
- Skyways
- Standard Bots
- Starship Technologies
- Sunain
- TaskVerse
- Teleo
- Telexistence
- The Global Talent Co.
- Third Wave Automation
- Torc Robotics
- TransPerfect DataForce
- TSMG
- Turing
- Vatn Systems
- Waffle Video
- Waymo
- Wayve
- Wing
- Workstream
- Zoox
- Moove
- Symbotic
- Skild AI
- Droyd
- Beep
- Coco Robotics
- Robot.com (Kiwibot)
- Collaborative Robotics
- Serve Robotics
- Alignerr
- micro1
- Flexdrive (Lyft)
- Vay
- Innodata
- Claru
- Mindy Support
- Appen
- Welo Data
Sorted by what an application there is likely worth to you, with a referral lift for employers that pay us a referral fee; your pay is never affected.
| Kind of work | Open roles | Typical pay | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robot Teleoperation | 82 | $25–$40/hr | $30/hr |
| Data & Demonstration Collection | 128 | $25–$50/hr | $30/hr |
| Embodied-AI Data Annotation | 17 | $7–$75/hr | $30/hr |
| AV & Drone Operators | 550 | $25–$50/hr | $30/hr |
| Robot Fleet Operations | 237 | $20–$40/hr | $25/hr |
| Egocentric & Wearable Capture | 134 | $6–$25/hr | $10/hr |
“Typical” spans the 25th percentile of posting pay (using the midpoint of each advertised range) up to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling, measured over 213 distinct advertised rates across 51 employers in the 1,157 roles open today. Posted rates go as low as $3.50/hr and as high as $120/hr, yet no single posting at either end bends the figure. Each kind of work and each employer further down is measured on its own open roles in exactly the same way. Live medians refresh daily; other figures are taken from employers’ own postings or from public reports, and each carries a label saying how we know it. Last data refresh: 1 Nov 2026. See our pay methodology. Want the findings as a written report (top-paying work, the pay gap, the share of roles that publish a rate)? Read our robot training pay report, or check the highest-paying employers, ranked. Looking for one job title (robot operator, drone pilot, safety driver)? See salaries by job title. To convert these rates into a number for you, try the earnings calculator.
By type of work
Robot training work, split into 7 kinds.
Choose the work that matches your background. Every card opens a full breakdown of who hires for it and their pay.
Just getting started? Read the learning guides first for what each kind of work involves on the job, who suits it, and how to get in, then return here to weigh up the pay.
AV & Drone Operators
Operate autonomous vehicles and drones as a human in the loop: in-vehicle safety drivers and remote AV operators who monitor, intervene, and generate the edge-case data self-driving systems train on, and Part 107 drone pilots flying data-collection missions. A large, established on-ramp into embodied-AI work with test fleets hiring in specific cities.
Live median $30/hr. Based on 84 different posted rates, from 19 employers. 427 of these 550 openings give no hourly figure. Advertised USD hourly sample only, not a representative wage survey. Missing rates may bias the result in either direction.
Robot Fleet Operations
Keep deployed robots running in the real world: remotely monitor and teleassist delivery and service robots when they get stuck, and work on-street as an attendant who retrieves, resets, and recharges units. Interventions may supply edge cases for further evaluation and training, and the work splits between remote-from-home monitoring and in-city on-site shifts.
Live median $25/hr. Based on 53 different posted rates, from 18 employers. 124 of these 237 openings give no hourly figure. Advertised USD hourly sample only, not a representative wage survey. Missing rates may bias the result in either direction.
Egocentric & Wearable Capture
Record yourself doing everyday physical tasks from a first-person view, on smart glasses, a head-mounted phone, or a wrist camera, so robots can learn from human video at scale. Some projects accept remote contributors with specified capture hardware; eligibility depends on the project.
Data & Demonstration Collection
Produce the physical demonstrations a robot learns from directly: teleoperated demos, kinesthetic teaching (guiding the robot's arms by hand), bimanual ALOHA-style rigs, and provided-hardware capture. On-site studio operators are the backbone of every humanoid data engine, and the work needs dexterity and consistency rather than a technical background.
Live median $30/hr. Based on 27 different posted rates, from 9 employers. 73 of these 128 openings give no hourly figure. Advertised USD hourly sample only, not a representative wage survey. Missing rates may bias the result in either direction.
Robot Teleoperation
Remotely pilot a physical robot, through a VR headset, a leader-follower arm, a joystick, or a haptic rig, so its motions become training demonstrations, or step in to guide an autonomous robot when it stalls. This is one entry point into robot training: humanoid labs run teleoperation shifts around the clock, and gaming or VR familiarity often matters more than a degree.
Live median $30/hr. Based on 22 different posted rates, from 11 employers. 59 of these 82 openings give no hourly figure. Advertised USD hourly sample only, not a representative wage survey. Missing rates may bias the result in either direction.
Embodied-AI Data Annotation
Label the data robots perceive the world through: 3D bounding boxes in LiDAR point clouds, sensor-fusion and segmentation, and action, affordance, and trajectory labels on egocentric and robot video. Still the most accessible remote entry point, but geography-priced: the same task pays a US floor and an offshore fraction of it, and the simplest labeling is compressing as auto-labeling improves.
Robot Task Evaluation & QA
Run trained policies on real robots and score success or failure, review collected demos for acceptance, and red-team embodied systems for unsafe behavior. Often folded into senior-operator and data-ops titles, and the tier where domain judgment (a trade skill, a clinical or industrial background) starts to command a real premium over volume work.
Compiled across employers and experience levels
Work out your rate
A ballpark drawn from advertised ranges, not an offer. Each role and location sets its own actual pay.
Ballpark figure
$25–$50/hrAnchored on 84 distinct advertised rates
Median $30/hr. Based on 84 different posted rates, from 19 employers. 427 of these 550 openings give no hourly figure. Advertised USD hourly sample only, not a representative wage survey. Missing rates may bias the result in either direction. The getting-started figure above sits in the bottom half of this range and the senior one in the top half.
Employer pay table
A Live from feed tag means the row shows the typical pay (the 25th percentile of what roles pay (the middle of each advertised range) to the 90th-percentile advertised ceiling) measured on that employer’s open roles, as of 2026-11-01, and its figure opens those roles sorted by pay. Updated each day. All other figures are taken from the employer’s own postings or public reports as of 2026-09-12, each labeled with how we know it.
Sorted by pay, the first 51 employers are the ones whose live job boards post hourly rates, highest typical opening first (the same order as the best-paying employers list). Employers with no hourly rate on their board come after them. Sorted by what an application there is likely worth to you, with a referral lift for employers that pay us a referral fee; your pay is never affected.
Some links here are referral links: when you join an employer through one, RobotTraining.jobs may receive a commission. It costs you nothing, and the employer pays you exactly the same.
The research behind this page
The figures here come from the same daily read of employers' job boards, and from sourced datasets, that our research reports publish with their method, their sources and a citation for every figure.
- Is Robot Training Pay Rising? Rates Week by Week
Are advertised rates for each kind of robot training work going up or down?
42 daily market snapshots
- Which Robot Training Jobs Pay a Premium
Holding the kind of work constant, which features of a robot training job go with a higher advertised rate?
+10.1% senior, lead, supervisor or level II+ title, within kind
- Robot Training Pay Against the Minimum Wage
How far above the minimum wage where the job is do robot training jobs in the US pay?
249 open US roles compared with the local minimum wage
- Robot Training Pay Transparency: Who States a Rate
How many robot training job ads name a pay rate, where do those rates fall, how far apart are the low and high ends of a range, and does a pay-transparency law change what employers post?
30% of open postings show an hourly rate