Trade Wage Data Hub: Every Trade, State, and Metro in One Place

Why Your Next Offer Needs a Real Number, Not a Gut Check

You've got an HVAC tech's résumé open in one tab and a blank offer letter in another. Someone on your team throws out a number — "we paid the last guy $58k, start there" — and suddenly that's your comp strategy. If the market has moved since that last hire (and for most trades, it has), you're either leaving a good candidate on the table or overpaying relative to what the role actually commands in your market.

This hub exists to fix that. Every guide linked here is built on BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data — the same government dataset that powers the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, pulled from a sample of roughly 1.1 million establishments across the country (BLS, May 2024). Each page translates that raw data into plain-English context: what the median means for your offer, where the 75th percentile sits, and how geography moves the number.

Find your trade below, or jump straight to a state or metro if you already know what market you're hiring in.

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Trade Wage Data Hub: Browse by Occupation

Each guide covers the national median, key BLS percentile anchors, job-market outlook, and a worked example of building a salary band from the data. Figures are from BLS OEWS (May 2024) and the Occupational Outlook Handbook (2024–34 edition); always verify the current figure at bls.gov/oes before making an offer.

Electricians (SOC 47-2111)

National median: $62,350/yr | 10th percentile: $39,430 | 90th percentile: $106,030 (BLS, May 2024)

Electricians are one of the fastest-growing trades in the country — projected +9% job growth from 2024 to 2034 (much faster than the average for all occupations), with roughly 81,000 annual job openings driving steady upward pressure on wages. That 90th-percentile figure of $106,030 is worth noting: it tells you the ceiling is real, and experienced journeymen in tight metro markets know it.

→ Electrician Salary Guide — full breakdown by percentile, experience tier, and how to anchor an offer for journeymen vs. master electricians.

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Plumbers, Pipefitters & Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152)

National median: $62,970/yr ($30.27/hr) (BLS, May 2024)

Plumbing, pipefitting, and steamfitting share a single BLS OEWS wage series (SOC 47-2152), so the $62,970 median applies across the group. The sector employs about 504,500 workers nationally, with +4% projected growth through 2034 and roughly 44,000 annual openings. Tight licensing requirements in most states mean the supply of qualified candidates moves slowly even when demand climbs.

→ Plumber Salary Guide — covers the shared wage series, what local licensing requirements mean for offer competitiveness, and how to structure a band when you're hiring across both plumbing and pipefitting roles.

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HVAC Mechanics & Installers (SOC 49-9021)

National median: $59,810/yr | 10th percentile: $39,130 | 90th percentile: $91,020 (BLS, May 2024)

With +8% projected growth through 2034 — well above the economy-wide average — and about 40,100 annual openings, HVAC is another trade where a flat "what we paid last time" number can lose you a qualified tech before you finish the interview. The $51,890 gap between the 10th and 90th percentile means the right anchor matters a lot; an offer built on the wrong end of that range signals you haven't done your homework.

→ HVAC Technician Salary Guide — walks through seasonal demand effects, refrigerant-certification premiums, and how to set a band that covers both installers and senior service techs.

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Welders, Cutters, Solderers & Brazers (SOC 51-4121)

National median: $51,000/yr | 10th percentile: $38,130 | 90th percentile: $75,850 (BLS, May 2024)

Welding shows more modest projected growth (+2% through 2034), but the 457,300-person workforce and ~45,600 annual openings mean turnover is still a hiring-cost reality. Because welding wages land below the construction-and-extraction group median of $58,360 (BLS, May 2024), employers in adjacent trades sometimes inadvertently underbid for certified welders who can move between sectors.

→ Welder Salary Guide — covers certification tiers (MIG, TIG, stick, structural), how process specialization shifts the percentile anchor, and a worked salary-band example.

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Carpenters (SOC 47-2031)

National median: $59,310/yr ($28.51/hr) (BLS, May 2024)

Carpentry is the largest single trade occupation in the construction and extraction group, with about 959,000 jobs nationally and +4% projected growth through 2034 generating roughly 74,100 annual openings. The breadth of the occupation — finish carpenters, form carpenters, rough framers — means a single "carpenter rate" without a specialty anchor is almost never the right starting point for an offer.

→ Carpenter Salary Guide — breaks down the occupation by specialty, explains how to use the BLS median as a floor rather than a ceiling, and includes a band-building worked example.

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Other Trades at a Glance

These occupations have their own BLS OEWS series and verified national benchmarks in our data library. Dedicated guides are in production; in the meantime, the national medians below give you an anchor, and bls.gov/oes is where to pull your state or metro figure.

Trade	SOC Code	National Median (BLS, May 2024)	Projected Growth 2024–34
Sheet Metal Workers	47-2211	$60,850/yr	+2%
Structural Iron & Steel Workers	47-2221	$62,700/yr	+4%
Masonry Workers	—	$56,600/yr	+2%
Construction Equipment Operators	47-2073	$58,320/yr	+4%

All figures: BLS OEWS, May 2024. Verify current figures at bls.gov/oes.

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Browse by State and Metro

National medians are a starting point — not an offer. A $62,350 national electrician median (BLS, May 2024) can look very different in Houston versus Chicago versus rural California. State and metro OEWS figures exist for most trade SOC codes; when a metro cell is suppressed due to small sample size, fall back to the state figure and note it.

Our state and metro guides pull the relevant OEWS state and metro figures directly, cite the SOC code and geography, and flag any suppressed cells. State and metro wage pages are built as those figures are verified — check bls.gov/oes directly for any geography we haven't yet published.

State Guides

• Texas Skilled Trades Wages — covers electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, and carpenters across Texas's major metros and statewide.
• California Skilled Trades Wages — California's prevailing-wage environment and high cost-of-labor tier make the state figures especially relevant for offer-setting.

Florida, New York, Illinois, and additional states: guides in production. For now, pull your state's figures at bls.gov/oes — select your SOC code, choose "State" geography, and look for the May 2024 release.

Metro Guides

• Houston Skilled Trades Wages — one of the country's largest construction markets; covers all major trade SOC codes with metro-specific OEWS figures.
• Chicago Skilled Trades Wages — a high-union-density metro where the BLS metro figure and prevailing-wage schedules can diverge meaningfully.

Dallas–Fort Worth, Atlanta, Phoenix, and additional metros: in production. In the meantime, bls.gov/oes → "Metropolitan area" → your MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area — the BLS's geographic unit for metro-level wage data) → your SOC code.

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How to Use This Hub to Build an Offer

Finding the right number is a three-step process. Here's a quick illustration using the electrician median as a worked example:

Step 1 — Pick your percentile anchor. The BLS OEWS May 2024 national electrician median is $62,350/yr. The median means half of all electricians nationally earn less than this and half earn more. If you're hiring a journeyman with 5–8 years of experience in a competitive metro, the 75th percentile ($62,350 is the 50th; the 90th is $106,030) is a more defensible anchor — it signals you've done the homework and you're competitive.

Step 2 — Apply a spread buffer to build a band. A salary band gives you a negotiating range. A common approach: set the band midpoint at your percentile anchor, then apply a ±15–20% spread to create a min and max. Using a round example anchored on the $62,350 median: min ≈ $53,000 / midpoint ≈ $62,350 / max ≈ $72,000. This is a worked example to illustrate the method — your actual band should be anchored on the geography-specific OEWS figure for your state or metro.

Step 3 — Verify the local figure. A national median is never a substitute for a local figure. Pull your state or metro from bls.gov/oes, or use a guide from this hub that's already done it. If you want the methodology packaged into a single reference with every trade we cover, the Skilled Trades Compensation Guide 2026 has all of it in one PDF — percentile tables, band-building worked examples, and a trade-by-trade outlook summary.

For a deeper walkthrough of the benchmarking methodology itself — what OEWS percentiles are, how to choose your anchor, and how to write a band policy your whole team can use — start with the Skilled Trades Wage Benchmarking Guide.

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What's Behind These Numbers

Every wage figure in this hub comes from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program. The OEWS is built from a sample of roughly 1.1 million establishments — about 186,000–189,000 sampled per semiannual panel — covering approximately 55% of total national employment (BLS). It's the source of every wage figure in the Occupational Outlook Handbook and the most statistically rigorous occupational wage dataset available for US employers.

SkilledMarkets takes that data and does the trade-specific work your team shouldn't have to: mapping the right SOC code to each role you're actually hiring, pulling the right geographic tier, and converting raw percentiles into an offer-ready salary band. The underlying data is free and public. The 2–3 hours of spreadsheet work and SOC-lookup expertise per hire is what the platform removes.

If you want to explore what that looks like for your next hire, see our plans at /pricing — or start with the data in whatever guide above matches the role you're filling right now.

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This article includes occupational profile information drawn from BLS OEWS data (May 2024), publicly available at bls.gov/oes. Wage figures are BLS estimates; always verify the current release before making a compensation decision.

This article includes information from O*NET OnLine, developed by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. O*NET is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration.