Rooftops, racking and wiring. The fastest trade on this site to get into, and the one most tied to policy.
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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
$53,140
New on a crew
$41,600
Lead installer or foreman
$79,970
The national median is $53,140 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $41,600. This is the wage survey's figure for solar photovoltaic installers specifically. Crews doing large commercial and utility projects, and anyone who also holds an electrical license, sit above it.
$41,000 to $46,000
Entry installer, taught on the job
Training for this job runs from a few days to about a year of on-the-job instruction. No other trade on this site gets you to a full wage that fast, which is both the attraction and the reason the pay ceiling is lower than in licensed trades.
$80,000 and up
Installers who also hold an electrical license
The wiring side of a solar system is electrical work, and in most states a licensed electrician has to do or sign off on it. Installers who complete an electrical apprenticeship alongside solar work earn well beyond the top of the installer range.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Many companies hire with no experience and train you on the roof, so the low end is genuinely nothing. The high end is a short community college solar certificate at in-district rates, roughly $1,500 to $5,000, plus the entry photovoltaic credential at $25 to apply and $125 to sit, and later the installation professional credential at $125 plus a $375 exam. Almost nobody takes on debt for this work. If you do choose a college program, file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) so a grant covers it instead of your savings.
There is almost no debt risk here. If you do take a college program, file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) so a grant covers it rather than your own cash.
Hourly, with overtime
Long summer days on roofs, shorter winter weeks in cold states.
Crew position matters
Pay steps up from ground crew to roof installer to lead installer to crew foreman.
Travel work
Large ground-mounted solar farms are built far from cities and pay travel and per diem allowances.
Policy risk
Demand in this trade moves with tax credits, utility rules and state programs, so hiring can swing fast in either direction.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
The shortest route to a full wage on this site, and the reason a lot of people use it as a first job in construction.
High school diploma or equivalent
Grade 12
A diploma or a GED (high school equivalency credential) is enough for most companies. Basic math and comfort with tools matter more than grades.
Get on a crew
Weeks
Residential installers hire year round in sunny states. You start carrying panels and learning racking before you touch wiring.
Learn the system
A few months to a year
Racking, mounting, flashing a roof so it does not leak, running conduit, connecting inverters, and the safety rules for working at height.
Certify
Year 1 to year 3
The associate-level photovoltaic credential is the normal first step, then the installation professional certification once you have documented experience.
Lead, or go electrical
2 to 6 years
Run a crew, move to commercial and utility projects, or start an electrical apprenticeship and come back with a license.
Math
Layout, spacing, angles and load calculations on a roof.
Physics
Electricity, and why a panel at the wrong angle produces much less power.
Shop or construction technology
Tools, fasteners and reading a drawing. Directly useful from week one.
Spanish or another second language
Crews in much of the country are multilingual, and a foreman who can communicate with everyone is worth more.
No state issues a solar installer license to an individual worker. What states do license is the electrical and contracting work: in most of the country the wiring has to be done or signed off by a licensed electrician, and the company needs a contractor license. Rules vary a lot, and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council keeps a database of state licensing requirements for exactly that reason. Your own credentials are the voluntary certifications from NABCEP (the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners), fall protection and safety training under OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), and whatever your employer requires.
On the job
The most common route by far. Installers hire and train, and you are paid from the start.
Community college programs
Short certificates in photovoltaic installation, often designed with local installers.
Registered apprenticeships
Clean energy apprenticeships registered with the federal apprenticeship office combine paid work with classroom instruction.
Electrical apprenticeship
The longer and better-paid version: become an electrician, then specialize in solar.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Photovoltaic associate
The entry certification from NABCEP (the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners). $25 to apply and $125 for the exam.
Photovoltaic installation professional
The board certification that carries real weight with employers and some rebate programs. $125 to apply and $375 for the exam.
Battery storage
Home batteries are now sold with most systems, and the crews who can install and commission them are ahead of demand.
Electrical license
The single biggest earnings step available in this trade.
No fear of heights
Most residential work happens on a pitched roof. Find out how you feel about that before you commit.
A driver's license and a clean record
Crews drive to several homes a day, and whoever drives the truck gets paid more.
Roofing knowledge
Every mount is a hole in someone's roof. Installers who understand flashing cause far fewer callbacks.
Heat tolerance
Solar work peaks in summer, on dark roofs, in the sunniest states in the country.
Residential crews do one or two houses a day, drive a lot and work on pitched roofs. Commercial crews spend weeks on one flat roof over a warehouse or a school, with bigger equipment and steadier schedules. Utility-scale crews build fields of thousands of panels, often far from any town, with travel pay and long rotations. The skills overlap enough to move between them, and people often do: residential to learn, then commercial or utility for the money.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Load the truck at the yard around 6:30am, drive to the first house. Set ladders and fall protection, find the rafters, mount and flash the rails, then carry panels up and bolt them down. Someone runs conduit and lands the wiring at the inverter and the panel. Clean up, get the homeowner to sign, drive to the next job. Hot roofs in summer, early starts, and a real sense of having finished something by the end of the day.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
A single chimney shadow across the wrong part of an array can cut output far more than the panel area it covers, because the panels are wired in strings. Working out where the shade falls through the year is part of designing the system.
Most callbacks on residential solar are leaks, not electrical faults. The flashing that seals each mounting point is the part homeowners never see and the part that decides whether the job was done properly.
Hiring in this trade tracks tax credits, utility payment rules and state programs more than it tracks the weather. When a state changes how it pays for rooftop solar, installers in that state feel it within months.
Solar used to be sold on the electricity bill alone. Since home batteries became common, much of the pitch is about keeping the lights on during an outage, which has pulled battery installation into the installer's core skill set.
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.