Electrician pay benchmarks for employers

The national numbers

BLS figures for May 2025 put the median annual wage for electricians at $63,190 and the median hourly wage at $30.38^[1]. The range is wide. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $42,640 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $108,510^[1]. An apprentice in the first year and a master electrician running commercial projects with overtime both sit inside that spread.

Electricians are a large workforce, about 821,000 jobs in 2025^[1], and demand is growing. BLS projects employment to rise 9% from 2025 to 2035, with about 72,700 openings a year^[1]. Electrical contractors employed 1,174,900 people in September 2026, up 4.5% on a year earlier^[3]. The competition for licensed people will not ease soon.

Who you compete with for electricians

A residential service company isn't only competing with other contractors. BLS reports these May 2025 medians by industry^[1]:

Government and manufacturing employers often offer steadier hours, pensions and less on-call work. To compete, a contractor usually needs a strong total package, variety of work, a clear path to a master license and, for some candidates, a route into estimating or running their own crew.

Contractors are not small employers in aggregate: electrical contractor establishments paid an average of $76,545 per employee in annual payroll in 2023^[4]. That figure includes all staff, from office to management, so treat it as a sign of how labor-heavy the business is, not as a technician wage.

License levels and pay steps

Most states require electricians to be licensed^[1], and the path runs through apprenticeship. BLS says most electricians learn their trade in a 4- or 5-year apprenticeship, with about 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training each year plus technical instruction, and that apprentices' pay rises as they learn to do more^[1]. Titles and requirements vary by state, but most employers recognize three stages.

Write your steps down: the rate at each stage, what earns the next raise (hours, classes, exam pass, specific skills), and when reviews happen. Apprentices compare written ladders between employers, and a vague ‘we'll see’ loses them to a union program or a larger contractor.

Union vs. non-union

Union membership is higher in the trades than across the economy. In 2025, 11.1% of employed wage and salary workers in the construction industry were union members, and 16.4% of those in construction and extraction occupations^[5]. Across all workers, the union membership rate was 10.0%^[6].

Earnings differ sharply. Among full-time workers in construction and extraction occupations, union members' median weekly earnings were $1,561 in 2025 against $1,004 for non-union workers^[2]. Across all occupations, the medians were $1,404 for union members and $1,174 for non-union workers, and BLS notes that these broad comparisons don't control for factors such as occupation, industry or firm size^[6]. Electricians aren't broken out separately in these tables.

• Union packages usually include pension and health contributions set by local agreements, so compare total compensation, not just the hourly rate.
• Union apprenticeships are a strong recruiting channel; open-shop contractors compete with registered programs of their own and with a faster route into service work.
• Non-union contractors often compete on schedule flexibility, take-home vehicles, residential and service variety and growth into supervisory roles.
• Check your local union scale and benefits package each year; it is the benchmark many experienced electricians use.

Residential, service and commercial are different markets

An electrician's pay expectations depend heavily on the kind of work they have been doing. Lumping them together leads to offers that are too low for one candidate and too high for another.

• Residential new construction: repetitive rough-in and trim work, often paid at the lower end locally, with work volume tied to housing starts.
• Residential service: troubleshooting, panel upgrades, EV chargers and generators in occupied homes. Needs diagnostic and customer skills; good service electricians command more because they sell and explain as well as fix.
• Commercial: larger projects, conduit, three-phase systems and blueprints, often on prevailing-wage or union jobs with higher rates.
• Industrial and maintenance: controls, motors and plant systems, frequently with manufacturing employers who pay near the top of the range.

When you hire a commercial electrician into residential service, expect a learning curve on customer communication and pricing conversations, and decide whether you pay for their commercial experience or for the service skills they still need to build.

Finding your local benchmark

1. 01

   Use BLS state and metro tables

   Look up occupation code 47-2111, Electricians, in the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables for your state and metro area.

2. 02

   Read the percentiles

   Note the 25th, median and 75th percentile hourly wages; they map more closely to apprentice, journeyman and senior pay than the national median.

3. 03

   Check the local union scale

   The journeyman wage and benefits in your area's agreement are public in many places and widely known among electricians.

4. 04

   Adjust for timing

   Specialty trade contractor earnings rose 4.7% in the year to September 2026^[7]; older survey figures may already be low.

5. 05

   Listen to the market

   Track what candidates ask for and why offers are declined. Two declines for pay in a quarter means your benchmark is out of date.

Build an offer

1. Confirm the license stage and verify it with the state board.
2. Pick the local percentile range for that stage and the type of work: residential new construction, service, commercial or industrial.
3. Set the base rate, then add expected overtime, on-call pay and any bonus, using real hours from similar roles.
4. Value the benefits, vehicle, tools, training and license exam fees you pay.
5. Write the next pay step and what earns it.
6. Calculate your full cost per billable hour, including taxes and benefits, so the offer fits your pricing.

Example: a fictional residential and service contractor is hiring a journeyman. Local data put the median near the national $30.38^[1], and the local union scale is higher once benefits are counted. The contractor offers above its local median, a take-home van, no weekend on-call for the first six months, paid continuing education and a written path to a master license with a raise at each step. It doesn't beat the union package on paper, but it wins candidates who want service work and a faster route to running a crew.

Put the whole offer in writing, including the raise schedule, so the candidate can compare it line by line with any other offer they hold.

Keep the electricians you have

Replacing a licensed electrician costs far more than a raise. Review pay for your current team every year against the same local data you use for new hires, and fix gaps before someone else does. Pay license renewal and continuing education fees, give journeymen a real route to a master license or a lead role, and share interesting work fairly instead of saving every panel upgrade for the same person. Ask in each annual review what would make them leave, and write down the answer.

Mistakes to avoid

• Using the national median in a high-cost metro, or a big-city figure in a rural market.
• Comparing your hourly rate with a union rate without counting union benefits.
• Leaving apprentice raises to the owner's memory instead of a written schedule.
• Paying new journeymen more than long-serving staff without fixing the gap.
• Forgetting overtime rules when adding bonuses or commission.

For the wider hiring plan, read hiring technicians during a skilled trades shortage, and compare with HVAC technician pay and roofer pay and crew models.