Install and repair the pipes that carry water, gas and waste. Paid from your first day of training.
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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
$63,800
Apprentice
$44,150
Senior or union
$108,420
The national median is $63,800 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $44,150. The federal survey counts plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters as one group, which is reasonable because the training overlaps heavily. Union industrial work and big-city service work sit at the top. Rural residential work sits at the bottom.
About $19 to $25 an hour
First-year apprentice, rising every six months or year
Apprentice pay is set as a share of the journey-level rate, usually starting near half and climbing to around 90% by the final year. There is no tuition bill waiting at the end.
$108,420 or more
Union journey workers, service plumbers on call, and owners
Overtime on construction deadlines, emergency call-out rates at nights and weekends, and owning the truck instead of driving somebody else's are the three things that push pay past six figures.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Hand tools are the real expense, built up slowly over four or five years rather than paid at once. The low end is a union apprenticeship where the training fund covers the classroom hours and you buy tools gradually. The high end is a full tool kit, a pricier state license and an initiation fee. There is no tuition either way, which is the whole argument for the trade.
The whole argument for this trade is the money you do not spend. You finish four or five years of training with savings and a license instead of student loans.
Pension
The pipe trades run some of the strongest pension plans left in the American workforce.
Health coverage funded by hours worked
Employers contribute per hour into a fund rather than deducting from your check.
Overtime at time and a half or double time
Common in commercial and industrial construction.
Free upgrade training for life
Welding, medical gas, backflow and code updates, taught at the local training center at no cost.
Travel and living allowances
Paid on shutdown and industrial jobs away from home.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship, not a degree. Roughly 80% on the job and 20% in a classroom.
High school diploma or equivalent
Grade 12
Math, and any shop or construction course you can take. A driver's license matters as much as your transcript here.
Get taken on
Weeks to months
Apply to a United Association local, a plumbing contractor, or a state-registered program. Apprenticeship.gov lists open positions by trade and zip code. This is the hardest step, not the exam.
Register as an apprentice
Days
In most states you register with the plumbing board before you touch a pipe. Texas, for example, requires an apprentice registration and fingerprints from every license holder.
Work and study
4 to 5 years
The United Association says its apprenticeship typically lasts five years. You work full time on pay and attend classes in the evenings or in blocks.
Journeyman license
After your hours
Log the required hours, then pass your state's journeyman examination on the plumbing code and practice. Several years later you can sit the master examination.
Math
Slopes, volumes, pressure and pipe sizing. You use it every day and getting it wrong floods a building.
Shop or construction technology
Shows an employer you can handle tools and turn up on time.
Physics
Water, gas and steam all obey rules you will be tested on.
English
The plumbing code is a thick book and the exam is about reading it correctly.
Most states license plumbers directly. Texas is a clear example: its State Board of Plumbing Examiners issues apprentice registrations, tradesman, journeyman and master plumber licenses, plus separate plumbing inspector credentials, and requires fingerprints for all of them. A few states leave licensing to cities and counties instead, so the rules can change when you cross a county line. Moving states usually means sitting a new examination on the local code, so check before you move, not after.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Master plumber license
Needed to pull permits and run your own shop in most states. Extra exam after several years as a journeyman.
Welding certification
Pipe welders on industrial and process work are paid a level above standard plumbing.
Medical gas installation
Oxygen and vacuum lines in hospitals. Separate certification, tightly inspected, and well paid.
Backflow prevention tester
Short course and a state certification. Steady annual testing work that is yours to keep.
Gasfitting and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) tickets
Widen what you can legally touch on the same job.
Driver's license and a clean record
Almost every employer requires one, and service work means your own van.
Pre-apprenticeship program
A semester at a community college makes a contractor far more willing to take you on.
Customer manner
Service plumbing is half repair and half reassuring somebody whose kitchen is under water.
Basic bookkeeping
If you ever go out on your own, the paperwork sinks more plumbers than the plumbing does.
A large share of plumbers eventually work for themselves, because the barrier is a master license, a vehicle and insurance rather than capital. The money is better and so is the stress: you chase invoices, carry the liability and answer the phone at 11pm. Plenty of people do it for ten years, then sell the customer list and go back to working for somebody else. That is a normal career, not a failure.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
New construction means an early start and a rhythm: rough-in the drain and vent lines before the walls close, then the supply pipes, then fixtures at the end. Service work is different, four to seven calls a day in a van, diagnosing a leak or a dead water heater in somebody's basement, quoting it, and fixing it before you drive to the next one. Industrial work is large pipe, welding and shutdowns with long hours for a few weeks at a time.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The United Association represents about 409,000 skilled workers across North America in eight trades, including plumbers, pipefitters, steamfitters, sprinkler fitters and welders. It has been running for more than 135 years and trains its own members rather than leaving it to colleges.
The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners issues apprentice registrations, tradesman plumber-limited, journeyman, master, responsible master plumber and plumbing inspector credentials, and takes fingerprints for all of them. Most states have their own version of this ladder.
Apprenticeship.gov, run by the United States Department of Labor, reports over 800,000 apprentices in registered programs each year, with a 93% employment retention rate after completion. You are paid throughout.
Plumbing codes exist because of cholera and typhoid outbreaks caused by drinking water mixing with waste. Backflow prevention, vented traps and pipe separation are all there for that reason, which is why inspectors are strict and why the license exam is mostly code.
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.