Lay brick, block and stone into walls that outlast the people who built them.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $62,120 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $44,820 at the lower end to about $100,010 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
3 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$300 to $6,200 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$62,120
Bottom tenth
$44,820
Top tenth
$100,010
The federal wage survey lists this trade as brickmasons and blockmasons. The national median is $62,120 a year. The bottom tenth earn $44,820 or less and the top tenth $100,010 or more, in 2025 figures. Pay also varies by state and city: O*NET OnLine (the Department of Labor's occupation database) has a local wage tool that shows the figures for your area.
$95,220 a year
The median in Minnesota, the highest of any state
Massachusetts ($94,950) and Illinois ($89,980) come next. Maine is the lowest, at $42,710. Apprentices are paid from day one, and their wages climb on a written schedule until you reach the full rate. You do not pay tuition for the classroom weeks.
$51,110 to $79,350
What the middle half of brickmasons and blockmasons earn, 2025
Masons who run their own contracting business are not in the survey. Most states require a contractor license to bid work over a certain dollar amount, and the rules differ everywhere. Being a great mason and running a business are two different skills, and the second one is what decides whether you make money.
Roughly, all in
$300 to $6,200
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A union apprenticeship charges no tuition because the training centers are funded by the trade, so the low end is trowels, levels, a hammer and hand tools. The high end adds a one year community college masonry certificate before you apply plus boots and safety gear you buy for yourself rather than having them supplied. Almost nobody in this trade carries student debt, because the training pays you instead of charging you.
Almost nobody in this trade carries student debt, because the training pays instead of charging.
Pension and annuity
Union masons accumulate retirement money by the hour worked.
Health coverage through the fund
Paid for by hours banked, which is why steady work matters.
Upgrade training
Union training centers run short courses on stone, restoration and refractory work at no charge to members.
Prevailing wage on public jobs
Schools, courthouses and other government work must pay a published local rate.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship. Three to four years, most of it on a wall.
High school diploma or an equivalency certificate
Grade 12
Shop and math classes help. You need to be 18 and physically able to lift and carry all day.
Find a program or a contractor
Weeks to months
Apply to a local union apprenticeship or get hired by a masonry contractor who will register you. Pre-apprenticeship courses help you get picked.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
The program is registered with the federal or your state apprenticeship agency, which sets the hours and the wage schedule.
Work plus classroom training
3 to 4 years
Registered apprenticeships run on a minimum of about 2,000 hours of paid work plus roughly 144 hours of classroom instruction a year.
Journeyman mason
After the hours
Complete the hours and skills checks and you work at the full rate anywhere in the country.
Math
Layout is measuring, angles and figuring how many units a wall takes.
Shop or construction technology
Shows an employer you can handle tools and turn up on time.
Physics
Loads, arches and why walls stand up.
Art or drafting
Masonry is a finish trade. People look at your work forever.
No state licenses bricklayers as workers, so an employer can hire you the day you show up. What most states do license is the contractor: if you want to take money directly from a homeowner for a job above a set dollar amount, states like California, Florida and North Carolina require a contractor license with an exam, proof of experience and insurance. Check your own state before you start advertising.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Refractory work
Lining furnaces, kilns and boilers in industrial plants. Hot, dirty work.
Stone masonry
Cut stone and architectural work. Slower and more skilled.
Restoration and repointing
Old buildings need masons who know historic mortar. Steady city work.
Foreman and layout
Setting the lines the crew works to, and running the job.
A driver's license
Sites are scattered and rarely near transit.
Fall protection and scaffold training
Short courses every commercial site will ask for.
Forklift ticket
Makes you useful on days the wall is not ready.
Spanish or English as a second language
Crews on many sites are bilingual, and being the person who can talk to everyone matters.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On site by 6:30 or 7am before the heat. Set up scaffolding, stock the wall with brick and mortar, run the line and start laying. You lay to a string so the course stays straight, tool the joints before the mortar sets, and keep the wall plumb. Cold mornings, hot afternoons, knees and lower back doing the work. At the end you clean tools, because dried mortar ruins them.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
O*NET OnLine (the Department of Labor's occupation database) counted about 62,400 brickmasons and blockmasons in 2025. Growth is slower than average, but about 4,100 jobs open each year as masons retire.
The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers says it has been working for its members for over 160 years.
On old buildings, using modern hard cement mortar cracks the soft historic brick instead of the joint. That is why restoration masons mix lime mortar.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Construction first, then the rest of the field. See every career in skilled trades.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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