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. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $63,800 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $44,150 at the lower end to about $108,420 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 5 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,050 to $3,100 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Very high 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
$63,800
Bottom tenth
$44,150
Top tenth
$108,420
The 2025 national median is $63,800 a year, and the bottom tenth earn $44,150 or less. The federal survey counts plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters as one group, which is reasonable because the training overlaps heavily.
$50,190 a year or less
$24.13 an hour or less, 25th percentile of the national wage survey, 2025
Apprentices earn from day one: the United Association says its apprentices get wages and benefits from the start, with raises as they progress. Each local sets its own scale.
$85,110 a year or more
The 75th percentile of plumbers paid a wage, 2025
The survey does not say who is at the top. Overtime on construction deadlines and call-outs at nights and weekends add to pay, and owning the truck makes you a business owner.
Roughly, all in
$1,050 to $3,100
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 or city 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
United Association locals run pension plans for members.
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.
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. Mostly on the job, with classroom hours on top.
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 many 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.
33 states and DC (the District of Columbia) license journeyman plumbers themselves. Texas, for example, registers apprentices and licenses journeyman and master plumbers. The rest, such as New York, Pennsylvania, California and Florida, license only the plumbing business or leave workers to cities and counties. Moving usually means a new exam on the local code, so check before you move.
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 welding opens up industrial and process work.
Medical gas installation
Oxygen and vacuum lines in hospitals. Separate certification, and tightly inspected.
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.
Many plumbers eventually work for themselves, because the barrier is a master license, a vehicle and insurance rather than capital. You keep the profit, and you carry the stress: you chase invoices, carry the liability and answer the phone at 11pm. Some people do it for 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, several 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 says it represents about 412,000 plumbers, pipefitters, sprinkler fitters, service technicians, welders and pipeliners across North America. It has been running for more than 135 years and trains its own members rather than leaving it to colleges.
Federal projections give plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters a Bright Outlook: much faster than average growth from 2025 to 2035 and about 42,000 openings a year.
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.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Plumbing, pipes and HVAC 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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