Build kitchens, furniture and millwork out of wood, in a shop, with machines and your hands.
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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 $46,680 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $35,650 at the lower end to about $63,720 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$500 to $10,300 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
$46,680
Bottom tenth
$35,650
Top tenth
$63,720
The national median is $46,680 a year, the bottom tenth earn $35,650 or less and the top tenth $63,720 or more, from the 2025 federal wage survey. The survey groups Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters together, which mixes production workers feeding machines in a factory with craftspeople building one-off kitchens.
$17.14 to $18.67 an hour
The bottom tenth and bottom quarter of cabinetmakers and bench carpenters, 2025
Shop helpers doing sanding, edge banding, hardware and cleanup usually start in this part of the range. Your first year is mostly the jobs nobody else wants.
$60,090 a year
The median in Delaware, the highest of any state
New York ($58,680) and Connecticut ($58,100) come next. Oklahoma is the lowest, at $36,630. The survey counts employees. Owning a small shop comes with all the risk of a small business.
Roughly, all in
$500 to $10,300
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Most shops will hire you with no training at all and teach you, and a registered apprenticeship pays a wage the whole time, so the low end is a starter set of hand tools. The high end is a one year community college cabinetmaking certificate at in state tuition, a fuller tool kit, and the Woodwork Career Alliance skill credential with its membership fee and evaluations. Filing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) can bring the community college program down to almost nothing, but do not take on real debt for this field.
Most shops will hire you with no training at all and teach you. Filing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) can bring a community college program down to almost nothing, but do not take on real debt for this field.
Hourly
The normal setup. Overtime at time and a half when a job is behind.
Piece rate
Some production plants pay by the unit, which rewards speed over care.
Salary in a lead role
Shop foreman and project manager jobs move to a salary.
Your own shop
Quoting jobs, buying material, chasing payment. No safety net.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Many people learn in a shop, not a classroom. A program helps you get the first job faster.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Take every woodworking and shop class available. Build things at home and photograph them.
Get into a shop, or take a program
0 to 2 years
Either apply straight to a cabinet shop as a helper, or do a 1-year community college woodworking certificate first.
Learn the machines
First year
Table saw, panel saw, jointer, planer, edge bander, shaper. Safety first, speed much later.
Apprenticeship or credential
2 to 4 years
Registered apprenticeships in cabinetmaking combine paid work with classroom hours. The Woodwork Career Alliance credential records skills you can prove.
Cabinetmaker
Year 3 onward
Reading shop drawings, cutting your own lists, building complete units and fixing what goes wrong.
Woodworking and shop
The most directly useful class in the building.
Math
Fractions, angles and geometry, constantly, and mistakes cost material.
Drafting or computer-aided design
Shop drawings are how the job gets communicated.
Art and design
Proportion and finish are what separates good work from adequate work.
There is no state license and no required exam. What is standardized is the work, not the worker. The Architectural Woodwork Institute writes the industry standards for casework, millwork and countertops, and its quality program certifies shops and projects rather than individuals. The closest thing to a personal credential is the Woodwork Career Alliance Passport, where an evaluator signs off on specific machine and hand skills you have demonstrated. Neither is required to get hired.
Things you don't need, but that help.
CNC (computer numerical control) machining
Programming and running the machine that cuts sheet goods.
Cabinet design software
Turning a kitchen drawing into a cut list and a parts order.
Finishing and spraying
Stain, lacquer and catalyzed finishes. A good finisher is hard to replace.
Solid surface and countertop fabrication
A separate specialty.
Installation
Scribing to crooked walls in somebody's house is a different skill from building in a flat shop.
A driver's license
Deliveries and installs need somebody who can drive the truck.
Photographs of everything you build
This field hires on what you can show, more than on paper.
Your own hand tools
Shops supply the machines, not the chisels.
Patience
The difference between a $2,000 kitchen and a $20,000 one is measured in fractions of a millimeter.
A lot of cabinetmakers eventually build a shop in a rented unit or a garage. The craft part is the easy half. The hard half is quoting accurately, buying plywood and hardware before you get paid, handling customers who change their mind after the doors are made, and carrying insurance. Many people who succeed at it spent years in someone else's shop learning how long things actually take.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Shop opens around 7am. Look at the drawings for the job and pull sheet goods. A morning of cutting parts, edge banding and drilling for hardware, with hearing protection on and dust everywhere. Afternoon is assembly: clamping boxes square, hanging doors, adjusting hinges until every gap matches. A delivery van gets loaded for tomorrow's install. Last 20 minutes is sweeping and blowing down the machines, every single day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Boards swell and shrink across the grain as humidity changes. A drawer that fits perfectly in a damp August can jam in a dry January, which is why good shops control humidity and design joints that allow movement.
The boxes are usually plywood or particle board with a veneer or laminate face, and only the doors and face frames are solid. That is not cheating: sheet goods are flatter, more stable and stronger across a span.
The federal apprenticeship system lists occupation titles that fall under cabinetmaking, including Hand Carver and Harpsichord Maker, alongside the ordinary Cabinetmaker title.
O*NET OnLine (the Department of Labor's occupation database) counted about 81,800 cabinetmakers and bench carpenters in 2025. It projects employment to decline by 2035, but about 6,900 jobs still open each year as people retire.
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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