Put the skin on a building. Interior plaster, exterior stucco, and the decorative work machines cannot do.
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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
$57,660
Apprentice or new
$39,560
Union or specialist
$96,710
The national median is $57,660 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $39,560. The federal survey counts plasterers together with stucco masons, which is fair because most people do both. Union work in big cities and ornamental restoration sit at the top of the range. Rural residential work sits at the bottom.
About $18 to $22 an hour
First-year apprentice, rising each year of the program
Apprentice pay is set as a share of the journey-level rate, usually starting around half and climbing every six months or every year as you log hours. Nobody pays tuition to learn this.
$96,710 or more
Union journey workers and ornamental specialists
Money at the top comes from three places: a union contract in an expensive city, overtime on a deadline, and decorative or historic plaster work, which almost nobody can still do properly.
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 some of the better pension plans in construction.
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.
Free 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. The people who can model and cast it are paid the most.
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 at a premium.
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 free 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 after eight or ten years with a truck, a mixer and two helpers. 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.
The state's Contractors State License Board licenses roughly 285,000 businesses across 45 classifications, and lathing and plastering is its own category. The license is about who may sell the work, not who may do it.
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.
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.