Build kitchens, furniture and millwork out of wood, in a shop, with machines and your hands.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$46,680
New in the shop
$35,650
Lead hand or custom shop
$63,720
The national median is $46,680 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $35,650. The survey groups Cabinetmakers and Bench Carpenters together, which mixes production workers feeding machines in a factory with craftspeople building one-off kitchens. The second group earns nearer the top of this range.
$17 to $21 an hour
Shop helper: sanding, edge banding, hardware, cleanup
Your first year is mostly the jobs nobody else wants. Pay climbs quickly once you can be trusted alone with a table saw and a cut list.
$63,720 and up
Top tenth: lead cabinetmakers, custom shops, installers
Installers who go to job sites and finish the kitchen in a customer's house usually earn more than bench hands. Owning a small shop pays more again, with all the risk of a small business.
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 make the community college program nearly free, 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 make a community college program nearly free, 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. Higher ceiling, no safety net.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Almost everyone learns 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. The single biggest pay bump in a modern shop.
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 that often pays better than cabinet work.
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. Most 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.
The Architectural Woodwork Institute publishes the standards that architects reference in contracts, covering everything from casework and wood paneling to stairs, handrails and historic restoration.
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.