Free Roofing Career Tool
Roofer Salary Calculator
Estimate roofing pay by state, experience, specialty, and overtime — anchored to Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data from May 2025. The national median is $55,440, and the honest headline is that roofing has both the lowest median and the lowest ceiling of the four major building trades.
Built by SubcontractorHub — the software roofing contractors use to quote, finance, and run every job.
Texas BLS range: median $46,030, 90th percentile $61,560
Anchored at ~50th percentile (median) of the trade
Specialty premiums are SubcontractorHub estimates, not BLS figures
Paid at 1.5× the implied hourly rate. Storm season and insurance work drive the real hours.
Roofing has no journeyman/master licensing ladder, so certifications carry less weight here than in plumbing or electrical — which is part of why the wage ceiling is lower.
Estimated total annual pay
$46,030
$22.13/hr straight time
- Straight-time base: $46,030
- Lands at ~25th percentile nationally
- vs Texas median: +$0
- vs national median ($55,440): −$9,410
Built on BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (released 2026), SOC 47-2181. These are wage figures — they exclude commission on sold jobs, storm-season bonuses, per diem on travel crews, piece-rate pay, and owner draw. In roofing that omission matters more than in any other trade, because commission and ownership are where the upside actually is. An estimate from public wage data, not an offer.
What Roofers Actually Earn
Across 135,490 roofers, the median annual wage is $55,440 ($26.65/hr) and the mean is $58,140:
- 10th percentile — $37,460: helpers and labourers
- 25th percentile — $46,260: roofers still learning the trade
- 50th percentile — $55,440: experienced roofers
- 75th percentile — $65,390: crew leads and foremen
- 90th percentile — $81,720: superintendents and estimators
Why Roofing Pays Less — and Where the Money Really Is
It is worth being straight about this rather than dressing it up. Roofing is the lowest-paying of the four major building trades on wages, and it also has the tightest ceiling:
| Trade | Median | Top 10% | Ceiling ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters | $63,800 | $108,420 | 1.70x |
| Electricians | $63,190 | $108,510 | 1.72x |
| HVAC Mechanics and Installers | $61,010 | $95,210 | 1.56x |
| Roofers | $55,440 | $81,720 | 1.47x |
Two structural reasons explain the gap. Roofing has no licensing ladder — there is no journeyman-and-master credential to force a wage step the way there is in plumbing and electrical. And the technical ceiling is genuinely lower: the roofer 90th percentile of $81,720 sits $26,790 below the electrician figure. Comparing state medians across all four trades, roofers do not hold the highest median in a single state.
But that is a statement about wages, not about roofing. The money in this trade is concentrated in sales and ownership to a degree that has no parallel in the other trades. A commission-paid roofing sales rep working storm and insurance claims routinely clears the 90th percentile of the wage distribution, and an owner running two or three crews is in a different bracket entirely. None of that appears in BLS wage data — which is precisely why a roofer reading this table should treat it as a floor to escape rather than a career forecast.
Highest and Lowest Paying States
The spread between top and bottom state is $34,220 — narrower than the other trades, but still larger than most promotions.
| Highest paying | Median | Lowest paying | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | $77,900 | Oklahoma | $43,680 |
| New Jersey | $76,600 | Mississippi | $44,940 |
| Minnesota | $74,490 | New Mexico | $45,300 |
| Massachusetts | $72,750 | Wyoming | $45,650 |
| Alaska | $66,750 | Alabama | $45,670 |
Notice which states are absent from the top: Florida and Texas, the two biggest storm markets, pay $47,590 and $46,030 respectively. Florida employs the most roofers in the country at 23,550 on one of the lowest medians. High volume drives hours and commission opportunity, not hourly rate — the highest-wage markets are the cold-weather, union-dense ones like Illinois and New Jersey.
How to Move Up the Curve
Because there is no licensing ladder, progression in roofing is less automatic than in the other trades. What actually moves the number:
- Metal and standing seam. The highest-paying work on the tools — fabrication and detail skills that a production shingle crew does not have.
- Commercial low-slope. TPO and EPDM systems on schools, warehouses, and hospitals pay above residential re-roofing on a more predictable schedule.
- Service and leak diagnosis. A modest wage premium and dramatically easier on the body than production tear-offs — which matters over a 25-year career.
- Learning to estimate. The single highest-leverage skill. Aerial takeoff and estimating move you off the roof into an office role, and they are the bridge to sales.
- Moving into sales or ownership. The step that actually breaks the wage ceiling. This is where roofing differs from every other trade — the upside is not in the wage distribution at all.
From Roof Measurements to a Signed Proposal
If the wage table above is your floor and ownership is the goal, the business side is the real obstacle — quoting, financing, and collecting, not installing. SubcontractorHub gives roofing contractors branded proposals with good-better-best options, embedded financing the homeowner can accept on the spot, and project management from signed job to final invoice.
Book a DemoFrequently Asked Questions
How much do roofers make in 2026?
The median annual wage for roofers is $55,440, or $26.65 per hour, per BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025. The bottom 10 percent earn under $37,460 and the top 10 percent earn over $81,720. Roofing is the lowest-paying of the four major building trades at the median — below plumbers at $63,800, electricians at $63,190, and HVAC technicians at $61,010.
Which state pays roofers the most?
By BLS median annual wage for May 2025: Illinois at $77,900, then New Jersey at $76,600, Minnesota at $74,490, Massachusetts at $72,750, and Alaska at $66,750. Oklahoma is lowest at $43,680. The highest-paying states are notably cold-weather, union-dense markets rather than the high-volume storm markets of Florida and Texas.
Why do roofers earn less than other trades?
Two structural reasons. Roofing has no licensing ladder equivalent to the journeyman-and-master system in plumbing and electrical, so there is no credential that forces a wage step. And it has a much lower technical ceiling in wage terms — the roofer 90th percentile is $81,720 against roughly $108,000 for both plumbers and electricians. The consequence is that in roofing the money is concentrated in ownership and sales rather than in wages: a roofing business owner or a commission-paid sales rep routinely out-earns the 90th percentile of the wage distribution.
What roofing specialty pays the most?
Metal roofing and standing seam work pays the most for roofers on the tools, followed by commercial low-slope systems such as TPO and EPDM, then tile and slate. Service and leak-diagnosis work pays a modest premium over production re-roofing and is far easier on the body. The largest single earnings step, though, is moving off the roof into estimating or sales — aerial takeoff and estimating skills are what convert roofing experience into an office wage.
How does this roofer 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 foreman in Illinois is priced against Illinois' spread rather than a national ratio. Entry 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. Note that it estimates wages only — it cannot model commission, which is where much of the real money in roofing sits.
Data Sources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 release, SOC 47-2181 — Roofers. National percentiles and state annual medians, 90th percentiles, and employment counts retrieved via the BLS public API. Cross-trade comparison figures are the same release for SOC 47-2152, 47-2111, and 49-9021. Specialty and certification premiums are SubcontractorHub estimates from contractor pay data and are labelled as estimates throughout — BLS does not publish wages by specialty within SOC 47-2181, nor does it capture commission or owner income.
Quote, Finance, and Install Every Roof in One Platform
SubcontractorHub is the platform roofing contractors use to turn numbers like these into a branded proposal, financing the homeowner can accept on the spot, and an install the crew can actually schedule — without re-entering the job anywhere. This tool is free to use; the platform is here if you want a closer look.
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