Aerospace companies in Seattle: eight giant sites, one dominant customer and the supplier tier around it

This report is for people evaluating Seattle-area aerospace companies: buyers and engineers looking for a supplier, job seekers comparing employers, and B2B sellers working the Puget Sound supply chain.

Seattle aerospace in Census data

US Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, NAICS 3364 (Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing), Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area (CBSA 42660):

Seattle has fewer establishments than Los Angeles (202) but more than twice the jobs. That's the defining fact of this market.

King, Snohomish and Pierce

The Census Bureau published employee counts for Snohomish and Pierce but flags them as high-noise: its confidentiality noise moved them by 5% or more. By subtraction from the metro total, the two counties together hold about 39,700 aerospace manufacturing jobs, most of them in Snohomish County, home to Everett. King County includes Renton, where the Washington State Department of Commerce places Boeing's other commercial airplane operation.

Eight sites hold most of the jobs

If every establishment under 1,000 employees sat at the top of its size class, the 82 of them would employ 10,533 people, so the eight largest hold at least 60,409 jobs. In broad bands, 41 establishments have 1 to 19 employees, 22 have 20 to 99 and 27 have 100 or more.

What the sites make

The other four establishments aren't published by code. Three space propulsion sites with 7,232 employees is a sign of how much space work the metro now does alongside airliners. The 64 parts makers, averaging 211 employees, are the supplier tier that most buyers and sellers deal with. The same dataset counts 168 machine shops, 12 navigation and guidance instrument makers and 63 air transportation support businesses in the metro; many supply or service the same programs.

Boeing's footprint, from its own filings

Boeing was incorporated in Washington in 1916, but its 2025 10-K gives its principal executive offices as 929 Long Bridge Drive, Arlington, Virginia, which is why no listed aerospace company shows up with a Seattle-area headquarters. The same filing lists Greater Seattle as a major location for both Commercial Airplanes and Defense, Space & Security, and says the International Association of Machinists District 751 represents over 30,000 Boeing manufacturing employees, primarily in Washington state, who struck for 53 days in 2024. The state Commerce department says Washington is the sole producer of the 737, 767 and 777, and builds the military KC-46 and P-8 derivatives.

Federal contracts performed in the metro

USAspending shows $4.62 billion of federal contract obligations in fiscal 2025 coded to aerospace manufacturing (NAICS 3364) with King, Pierce or Snohomish County as the place of performance, nearly all from the Department of Defense and $4.46 billion of it in aircraft manufacturing. Boeing records account for $4.58 billion. Below Boeing, the record names a supplier tier:

Prime contract records don't show subcontracts, so most of Boeing's local suppliers won't appear. Treat this list as a starting set of named, verifiable suppliers, not a ranking.

Prospecting the Puget Sound supplier tier

Timing in this market follows production rates and labor news. A rate increase on one program ripples through the 64 parts makers within months; a strike stops it. Read the customer's 10-K and quarterly filings before you plan a quarter.

Illustrative example. The lab, its prices and its win rate are invented; the counts are from Census data.

Cascade Metrology (cascademetrology.example), a calibration and CMM inspection lab in Kent, wants recurring contracts with aerospace parts makers. Its list is the 64 parts makers in the metro plus the 168 machine shops, filtered to those holding AS9100 in the IAQG's OASIS database, which it estimates at 70 accounts. At a 15% win rate and $36,000 a year per contract, that's 10 contracts and $360,000 of recurring revenue. It leads with turnaround time, because a parts maker waiting on calibration can't ship. Bebop can find companies matching a description like "AS9100 machine shops in Snohomish County supplying commercial aircraft programs" and say why each fits.

Subject: Calibration turnaround for [company]

Hi [first name],

[Company] supplies [part family] into [program], and your quality team keeps [type of gauge or CMM] in calibration for every shipment.

We calibrate and inspect for AS9100 shops between Kent and Everett, with a standard five-day turnaround and pickup on site.

If a calibration backlog has ever held up a shipment, could we spend 15 minutes on [day] looking at your schedule?

[Your name]

Local sources

For the rest of the state, from Spokane composites to Moses Lake flight testing, see aerospace companies in Washington.

Next step: see the region's engineering services market in the report on engineering firms in Seattle.