Put the skin on a building. Interior plaster, exterior stucco, and the decorative work machines cannot do.
Click through it
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 $57,660 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $39,560 at the lower end to about $96,710 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 $1,700 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.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$57,660
Bottom tenth
$39,560
Top tenth
$96,710
The 2025 national median is $57,660 a year, and the bottom tenth earn $39,560 or less. The federal survey counts plasterers together with stucco masons, which is fair because many people do both.
$23.06 an hour or less
25% of plasterers and stucco masons earned this or less in 2025
Apprentices are paid from the first week, on a scale set by each program that rises as you log hours. Nobody pays tuition to learn this.
$71,310 a year or more
The 75th percentile of the national wage survey, 2025
The survey does not say who is at the top. Overtime on a deadline adds to pay, and decorative or historic plaster work is a skill few people still have.
Roughly, all in
$300 to $1,700
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A registered apprenticeship is paid work and the employer and training fund cover the classroom side, so there is no tuition at all. The low end is a starter set of hand tools, trowels, a hawk, floats and a mixing paddle, with boots and safety gear reimbursed. The high end is a fuller tool kit, boots and safety gear bought yourself, and a union local's initiation fee up front, after which dues come out as a small share of your hourly rate. You finish training with savings instead of student loans, which is the whole argument for the trades.
This is one of the cheapest careers on this site to enter. You finish training with savings instead of student loans, which is the whole argument for the trades.
Pension
Union locals in the plastering and cement trades run pension plans for members.
Health coverage for you and your family
Paid for by employer contributions per hour worked, not deducted from your check.
Overtime at time and a half
Common, because plaster and stucco work has to finish before the next trade arrives.
Upgrade training
Local training centers teach new materials and systems at no cost to members.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship, not a classroom. Mostly on the job, a few nights a month in a training center.
High school diploma or equivalent
Grade 12
That is the usual requirement. Shop class, math and any construction course help you get taken on.
Find a sponsor
Weeks to months
A plastering contractor or a local of the Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association. This is the hard step, and knowing somebody in the trade is how most people manage it.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
Through a program registered with the United States Department of Labor or your state apprenticeship agency. Apprenticeship.gov lists open positions by trade and zip code.
Work and learn
3 to 4 years
Usually 3 to 4 years, roughly 2,000 hours on the job each year plus classroom hours in the evenings. You start carrying material and end running a wall yourself.
Journey level
After your hours
You finish with a nationally recognized completion certificate and the full hourly rate. No exam board sits between you and the job.
Math
Areas, volumes and mix ratios all day. Getting the quantities wrong costs real money.
Shop or construction technology
Proves to an employer you can use tools and show up.
Art
Ornamental plaster is sculpture, and modeling and casting it is a rare skill.
Physical education
This trade is hard on shoulders. Strength and mobility are job protection.
No state issues a plasterer's license the way it issues a nurse's or an electrician's. What states regulate is contracting: if you want to take jobs in your own name you generally need a contractor license. California is the clearest example. Its Contractors State License Board licenses around 285,000 contractors across 45 separate classifications, and lathing and plastering is one of them. So you can work as a plasterer on day one, but you cannot bid your own jobs until the state says so.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Ornamental and historic plaster
Running cornices, casting rosettes, repairing old buildings. Very few people left who can, and museums and state capitols need them.
Exterior insulation and finish systems
Layered exterior wall systems. Needs manufacturer training, and inspectors care who installed it.
Venetian and polished finishes
High-end interior work in houses and hotels, billed by the square foot.
Cement masonry as a second trade
Flatwork and concrete finishing keep you busy when plastering is slow.
Foreman and estimating
Reading plans and pricing a job moves you off the wall and onto salary.
Driver's license and a vehicle
Sites change every few weeks and start early.
Spanish or English as a second language
Crews on most plastering jobs are mixed, and the foreman who can talk to everyone gets promoted.
Fall protection and scaffold safety cards
Short courses, often at no cost through a union, and employers ask for them.
A phone full of photos of your own work
In finish trades that is your resume.
Plastering suits a small business better than most trades, because the equipment is cheap and the work comes in defined chunks. Plenty of journey workers go out on their own with a truck, a mixer and a helper or two. You will need your state contractor license, liability insurance and the nerve to price a job wrong occasionally. The upside is that you keep the margin instead of earning the rate.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On site by 6:30 or 7. Mix the first batch, load the hawk, and work a wall while the material is still open. Plaster and stucco set on their own schedule, not yours, so you move fast and you do not stop in the middle of a wall. Exterior stucco means scaffold and weather. Interior means dust, lights and a deadline set by the painters coming after you. Clean tools before the material hardens, or replace them.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Traditional exterior stucco is a three-coat system: a scratch coat keyed into the lath, a brown coat that flattens the wall, and a finish coat that gives it color and texture. Each one has to cure before the next, which is why a stucco job takes days and cannot be rushed by working harder.
Apprenticeship.gov, run by the United States Department of Labor, reports more than 800,000 apprentices in registered programs each year and a 93% employment retention rate for people who finish. You are paid the whole time.
Federal projections expect average growth for plasterers and stucco masons from 2025 to 2035, with about 1,500 openings a year across the country. It is a small trade.
The Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association represents both trades across the United States and Canada, and runs its own training fund. Many members carry both skills, which is useful because concrete work and plaster work are busy in different seasons.
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.
Tell us about this page. A person reads every message.
No email app on this device? Use Gmail instead: report a mistake in Gmail or say what you like in Gmail.