Free Plumbing Career Tool
Plumber Salary Calculator
Estimate plumber pay by state, experience, specialty, licensing, and overtime — anchored to Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data from May 2025, not crowdsourced guesses. The national median is $63,800, the highest of the four major building trades.
Built by SubcontractorHub — the software plumbing contractors use to quote, finance, and run every job.
Texas BLS range: median $59,840, 90th percentile $81,890
Anchored at ~50th percentile (median) of the trade
Specialty premiums are SubcontractorHub estimates, not BLS figures
Paid at 1.5× the implied hourly rate. Shutdown and turnaround work often runs well above 15.
A journeyman license is the baseline for working unsupervised in most states, so it is not counted as a premium here.
Estimated total annual pay
$59,840
$28.77/hr straight time
- Straight-time base: $59,840
- Lands at ~43rd percentile nationally
- vs Texas median: +$0
- vs national median ($63,800): −$3,960
Built on BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (released 2026), SOC 47-2152. Straight-time figures exclude per diem on travel work, shift differentials, on-call pay, commission on repipes and water heater replacements, vehicle allowance, and benefits. This is an estimate from public wage data, not an offer.
What Plumbers Actually Earn
Across 465,840 plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters, the median annual wage is $63,800 ($30.67/hr) and the mean is $72,170. The mean sits $8,370 above the median because a long upper tail of industrial pipefitters and steamfitters pulls the average up.
The percentile spread matters more than the average if you are working out where a specific plumber should sit:
- 10th percentile — $44,150: apprentices and helpers
- 25th percentile — $50,190: apprentices nearing turnout
- 50th percentile — $63,800: journeyman plumbers
- 75th percentile — $85,110: senior journeymen and foremen
- 90th percentile — $108,420: industrial pipefitters, steamfitters, master-licensed plumbers
Worth knowing why this SOC code pays well: it bundles residential service plumbing, commercial pipefitting, and industrial steamfitting into one occupation, and the industrial end pays substantially more than the residential end. Part of what you see in the median is process piping in refineries and power plants, not drain cleaning.
Highest and Lowest Paying States
Location is the single largest factor in plumber pay — larger than licensing, and larger than several years of experience. The gap between the top and bottom state is $52,360, a 2.08x ratio at the same experience level.
| Highest paying | Median | Lowest paying | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $101,020 | Arkansas | $48,660 |
| Illinois | $99,950 | South Dakota | $51,620 |
| Oregon | $97,050 | Idaho | $52,380 |
| Minnesota | $94,410 | Florida | $52,910 |
| Alaska | $93,920 | South Carolina | $53,940 |
One counterintuitive detail: the District of Columbia pays the highest median in the country at $101,020 but has the narrowest spread between median and 90th percentile of any state — its p90 is only $117,180. DC pays well for ordinary work and offers little headroom above it. The full 51-state table with 90th percentiles is in our plumber salary guide.
How This Calculator Is Built
Rather than invent multipliers, the experience tiers are anchored to real BLS numbers at both ends. Selecting Illinois prices a senior journeyman inside Illinois' own spread — $99,950 to $126,430 — rather than against a national ratio. Apprentice tiers use the national lower-tail ratios, since BLS does not publish state-level 10th and 25th percentiles in this series.
Specialty and license premiums stack multiplicatively, which can price a master-licensed industrial steamfitter above what anyone in the state actually earns — so the result is capped at the state's 90th percentile, and the tool says so when the cap binds. BLS publishes nothing above the 90th percentile, so that is the honest ceiling.
How to Move Up the Curve
Getting from the median to the $85,110 range — a $21,310 move — usually takes one of a few specific things:
- Moving into industrial steamfitting or process piping. The top of the trade for anyone staying on the tools, with shutdown and turnaround overtime that often matters more than the base rate.
- Adding medical gas certification. ASSE 6010 is a short course that opens hospital and surgical-suite work most plumbers cannot legally touch — the best return per hour invested in this trade.
- Backflow prevention certification. Cheap, and annual testing is legally mandated in most jurisdictions, which makes it recurring revenue rather than one-off work.
- Getting a master license and running work. The largest single step — it moves you from wage income to business income, which wage data cannot measure.
- Relocating. Unglamorous but true: the state gap is larger than most promotions. A journeyman moving from Arkansas to Illinois gains about $51,290 at the same experience level.
From Sizing Numbers to a Signed Proposal
If you run the company rather than the van, the pay curve above is a hiring and retention problem. The plumbers at the 75th percentile are the ones who can price and present work in front of the customer — and that is as much about the tools you hand them as their experience. SubcontractorHub gives crews branded proposals, embedded financing, and good-better-best options on a tablet, so closing a repipe does not depend on paperwork skill.
Book a DemoFrequently Asked Questions
How much do plumbers make in 2026?
The median annual wage for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters is $63,800, or $30.67 per hour, per BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025. The bottom 10 percent earn under $44,150 and the top 10 percent clear $108,420. Pay varies by $52,360 between the highest-paying state (District of Columbia, $101,020) and the lowest (Arkansas, $48,660).
Which state pays plumbers the most?
By BLS median annual wage for May 2025, the District of Columbia leads at $101,020, followed by Illinois ($99,950), Oregon ($97,050), Minnesota ($94,410), and Alaska ($93,920). Note that DC also has the narrowest gap between its median and its 90th percentile of any state, so while typical pay is the highest in the country, the headroom above it is the smallest.
What plumbing specialty pays the most?
Industrial steamfitting and process piping pay the most for plumbers who stay on the tools — refinery, power plant, and chemical plant work carries both a skill premium and heavy shutdown overtime. Commercial pipefitting follows. Of the add-on certifications, ASSE 6010 medical gas and pipe welding give the strongest return relative to the time they take, and backflow prevention is valuable because annual testing is legally mandated in most jurisdictions, making it recurring work.
How does this plumber salary calculator work?
It uses BLS OEWS data for the state you select, anchored at both ends of that state's own range — the median and the 90th percentile are real BLS figures for all 51 states, so a senior journeyman in Illinois is priced against Illinois' spread rather than a national ratio. Apprentice tiers use national lower-tail ratios, since BLS does not publish state-level 10th and 25th percentiles in this series. Specialty and certification premiums apply on top, overtime is added at 1.5x the implied hourly rate, and the result is capped at the state's 90th percentile because BLS publishes nothing above it. It is an estimate built on public wage data, not an offer.
Data Sources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 release, SOC 47-2152 — Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters. National percentiles and state annual medians and 90th percentiles retrieved via the BLS public API. Specialty and license premiums are SubcontractorHub estimates from contractor pay data and are labelled as estimates throughout — BLS does not publish wages by specialty within SOC 47-2152.
Quote, Finance, and Schedule Every Job in One Platform
SubcontractorHub is the platform plumbing contractors use to turn sizing and cost numbers like these into a branded proposal, financing the homeowner can accept on the spot, and a scheduled job — without re-entering anything. This tool is free to use; the platform is here if you want a closer look.
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