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. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$62,120
First years
$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 and the bottom tenth earn about $44,820. Union commercial work in northern cities pays near the top; residential work in the South pays near the bottom.
Starts around half the journeyman rate
First year apprentice, with a raise roughly every six months
Registered apprentice wages climb on a written schedule until you reach the full rate. You do not pay tuition for the classroom weeks.
$100,000 and up
Experienced masons running their own small contracting business
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.
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.
Free 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, which is usually well above the average.
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 and the best paid masonry there is.
Stone masonry
Cut stone and architectural work. Slower, more skilled, higher rate.
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.
The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers says it has been representing masons for over 160 years, making it one of the oldest continuously operating unions in North America.
National speed and quality contests judge how many brick a mason can lay in an hour while keeping the wall within tolerance. Top competitors lay well over a thousand.
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, and why that specialty pays a premium.
Last checked September 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.