Electrical Careers

Electrician Salary in 2026: What the BLS Data Actually Shows

Published July 2026  ·  11 min read

The median electrician in the United States earns $63,190 a year — $30.38 per hour worked. That single number hides most of what matters. The top 10% of the trade clears $108,510, and the gap between the best- and worst-paying states is $52,240 at the same experience level — more than the entire starting wage of an apprentice.

Every figure on this page comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025, released in 2026, for SOC code 47-2111. We pulled it from the BLS API directly rather than repeating secondary sources. Want to run your own numbers? Use the electrician salary calculator to combine state, experience, specialty, license level, and overtime.

The National Numbers

Across 757,220 electricians employed nationally:

• Median annual wage: $63,190 ($30.38/hr)
• Mean annual wage: $71,490 ($34.37/hr)
• 10th percentile: $42,640 ($20.50/hr) — apprentices and helpers
• 25th percentile: $49,430 — junior electricians working under supervision
• 75th percentile: $83,940 — senior journeymen and foremen
• 90th percentile: $108,510 ($52.17/hr) — industrial, controls, and master-licensed electricians

The mean sitting $8,300 above the median tells you the distribution is right-skewed — a long upper tail rather than a symmetric bell. For anyone planning a career in the trade, that skew is the good news: the ceiling is a long way above the middle, and unlike most professions it is reachable without a degree and without moving into management.

Specialty tracks move the needle more than years of service. Solar PV, battery storage, and controls work all pay above residential wiring at the same experience level.

How Much Do Electricians Make Per Hour?

The median is $30.38 an hour, with the 10th percentile at $20.50 and the 90th at $52.17. One caveat matters more for electricians than for most trades: BLS hourly figures are straight-time base wage. They exclude overtime premium, per diem on travel work, and shift differentials.

That omission is not trivial. Industrial plant outages and data center fit-outs routinely run 50 to 60 hour weeks for months at a stretch. An electrician on $30.38 base working 55-hour weeks earns roughly $98,735 annualised — well above the published 75th percentile — without any change in skill or title. When you compare a job offer against these tables, check whether the number you are given is base or gross.

Electrician Salary by Experience Level

BLS does not publish wages by years of experience, so any table that claims to is estimating. The honest approach is to map experience tiers onto the percentile curve, which tracks reasonably well in a trade with a formal registered apprenticeship:

The steepest single jump is from the 50th to the 75th percentile — a $20,750 move, or 33%. That step is rarely about accumulating more years. It is about getting a master license, moving into industrial or controls work, or taking responsibility for running crews.

Electrician Salary by State

Location outweighs both licensure and several years of experience. 29 of 51 states and DC pay above the national median. The table below gives each state's median, its 90th percentile — the realistic top of the trade locally — and how many electricians it employs.

Three things in this table are worth pausing on.

Oregon, not California, tops the list. Oregon's median of $101,310 beats California's $76,160 by $25,150. Only four states clear a $95,000 median: Oregon, Illinois, Hawaii, and Washington.

The biggest job markets are not the best-paying ones. Texas employs the most electricians in the country at 76,770, yet its median of $58,570 sits $4,620 below the national median. Florida is the same story: 49,700 electricians at $57,250. Volume of work and price of work are different things.

Adjust for cost of living before you pack the van. Hawaii ranks third on median at $96,460, but almost nobody would argue a Hawaii electrician is better off in real terms than an Illinois one on $99,560.

The Metric Almost Every Salary Page Gets Wrong

Every electrician salary page ranks states by median. If you are deciding where to build a 20-year career, median is the wrong number to optimise for. What you want to know is how high the trade can go where you live — and the two are only loosely related.

Dividing each state's 90th percentile by its own median gives a ceiling ratio: how much room there is above typical pay. Nationally that ratio is 1.72x. By state it ranges from 2.08x down to 1.17x, and the ranking barely resembles the median table:

Vermont is the clearest illustration. Its median of $63,430 is almost exactly the national median — an unremarkable state to be an average electrician in. But its 90th percentile is $132,080, a 2.08x ceiling ratio and the widest in the country. A Vermont electrician who specialises has more headroom than one in Illinois, whose $99,560 median is excellent but whose ceiling ratio of 1.24x is among the most compressed in the nation.

The practical read: high-median, low-ratio states pay well for ordinary work — good if you want a solid journeyman wage without specialising. Low-median, high-ratio states reward specialisation heavily — the state average is unimpressive but the top of the trade is not. And 16 states have a 90th percentile above the national 90th percentile of $108,510, which means top-of-trade pay is far more geographically concentrated than typical pay is.

Which Electrical Specialties Pay Most

Getting from the median to the $83,940 range usually comes down to one of these moves. The percentages below are SubcontractorHub estimates from contractor pay data, not BLS figures — BLS does not break wages out by specialty within SOC 47-2111.

• Industrial / plant maintenance. The highest-paying track that keeps you on the tools, roughly 14–18% above residential service. Motor controls, VFDs, and PLC troubleshooting, usually with shift premiums and heavy outage overtime.
• Controls and building automation. Around 12–15% above residential. Fewer qualified electricians and commercial clients who pay to keep a building tuned — the same dynamic that makes controls the top technical track in HVAC.
• Commercial and institutional. Typically 8–12% above residential on a more predictable schedule. Hospitals, schools, and data centers, where code compliance and inspection readiness carry real weight.
• Solar PV and battery storage. Roughly 8–12% above residential wiring, and the fastest-growing of these tracks. An electrician who can pull permits, size a service upgrade, and commission a battery is scarce in most markets.
• Getting a master license and running work. The largest single step, worth roughly 9% as an employee — and far more than that if you start pulling your own permits. But it moves you from wage income to business income, which wage data cannot measure.

Note what is not on that list: more years doing the same work. Between the 25th and 50th percentile, time served is the main driver. Above the median it stops being enough.

Electrician vs HVAC Technician vs Plumber

The three trades sit closer together than trade-school marketing suggests. Electricians are ahead at the median — $63,190 against $61,010 for HVAC mechanics and installers — but the $2,180 gap is small enough that your state and your specialty matter far more than which trade you pick.

The real difference is the top end. The electrician 90th percentile of $108,510 sits $13,300 above the HVAC 90th percentile of $95,210, mostly because industrial and utility-adjacent electrical work has no direct residential-HVAC equivalent. On the other hand, HVAC has a shorter path to owning a business, because a service van and a pricebook get you started with less capital than an electrical contracting license in most states.

Is Electrical a Good Career in 2026?

BLS projects 9% employment growth for electricians from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average across all occupations, with about 81,000 openings a year. Most of those openings come from retirements and workers leaving the trade rather than from new positions — which is precisely why experienced electricians have leverage on pay right now.

Four demand drivers sit behind that projection and none of them look like they reverse this decade: data center construction, grid and substation upgrades, EV charging infrastructure, and residential electrification — heat pumps, induction ranges, and solar with battery storage, all of which need service upgrades and panel work. The trade also carries no degree requirement and no student debt, and apprentices are paid from day one.

If You Are the One Paying These Wages

With 81,000 openings a year and most of them replacement rather than growth, experienced electricians have more choice than they have had in years. Two things follow for contractors.

First, benchmark against your state median, not the national one. Paying $63,190 in Oregon means paying $38,120 under the local median, and your best electricians already know it. Wage is also only part of the cost — our labor burden calculator shows why base wage is usually around 70% of what an employee actually costs you.

Second, the electricians at the 75th percentile are usually the ones who can scope and price work in front of the customer, not just execute it. That capability is partly a tooling question rather than purely a talent one. An electrician handed a branded proposal with good-better-best options and financing the homeowner can accept on the spot closes service upgrades and panel replacements at a rate that has little to do with natural salesmanship — which is worth more than a raise to both sides.

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