Cut and set natural stone into walls, steps and buildings that will still be standing in a hundred years.
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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 $57,390 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $39,300 at the lower end to about $86,180 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$400 to $7,500 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.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$57,390
Bottom tenth
$39,300
Top tenth
$86,180
The national median is $57,390 a year. The bottom tenth earn $39,300 or less and the top tenth $86,180 or more (2025 federal wage survey). Stonemasons have their own line in the federal wage survey, separate from brick and block masons.
$39,300 to $45,450
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of stonemasons earn, 2025
Apprentices and mason tenders usually start in this part of the range. You begin by carrying, mixing and cleaning while you watch. Pay steps up as you are trusted to set stone yourself, and faster in a registered apprenticeship with a written wage schedule.
$82,740 a year
The median in Wisconsin, the highest of the states with data
Nevada is close behind at $79,600 and Washington state at $78,010. The lowest is Mississippi, at $40,700. State medians from the 2025 federal wage survey. Weather cuts into a year's earnings in cold states.
Roughly, all in
$400 to $7,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A registered apprenticeship pays you from the first day with no tuition, so the low end is a starter set of hammers, chisels, trowels, levels and a bag. The high end is a community college masonry certificate at roughly $2,000 to $6,000 in-state over one to two semesters, plus a fuller tool kit and the boots, knee pads and gloves you will keep replacing. There is no exam fee and no license to buy in most places, which makes this one of the cheapest trades to enter. The real cost is the slow years while your hands learn, and the toll the work takes on your back and knees.
There is no exam fee and no license to buy, so this is one of the cheapest trades to enter. Your real cost is the slow years while your hands learn.
Union pension and health fund
Members of the bricklayers and allied craftworkers union bank hours into a pension and a family health plan.
Ongoing training
The International Masonry Training and Education Foundation runs training and certification for union members through their whole career.
Overtime rates
Time and a half is normal on commercial jobs when a pour or a deadline demands it.
A portable skill
There is no license to transfer, so good stonework gets you hired in any state.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Learned by doing. Nobody hires a stonemason on a diploma, they hire on the wall you built last month.
High school diploma or an equivalency certificate
Grade 12
Math, shop and art all help. Physical fitness matters more here than grades.
Get on a crew
Weeks to months
Start as a mason tender or laborer. Mixing mortar, hauling stone, cleaning joints. It is how you get seen.
Apprenticeship or on-the-job training
3 to 4 years
Unions and contractor associations sponsor programs covering blueprint reading, math, building codes and safety alongside paid work.
Setting stone yourself
From year 2
You move from tending to laying: levels, lines, plumb bobs and pattern layout. This is where the craft actually starts.
Journeyman stonemason
After 3 to 4 years
Fully qualified. From here you can specialize in restoration, go into landscaping stonework, or start your own business.
Math
Layout, levels, angles and estimating materials.
Shop or construction class
Tools, safety and the habit of measuring twice.
Art
Stone patterning is a design decision, and clients pay for a good eye.
Physical education
Blunt but true: the job is lifting heavy things all day, carefully.
No state licenses individual stonemasons. What most states do license is the contractor: the business that signs the contract and pulls the permit. So you can work as a mason the day somebody hires you, but the day you want to bid your own jobs you will usually need a contractor license in your state, which normally means proving a few years of experience, passing a trade and business exam and carrying insurance.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Historic restoration
Repointing and rebuilding old stone buildings. Skilled and respected work.
Stone carving and lettering
A rare craft. Memorials, architectural details and conservation work.
Refractory work
Lining furnaces and kilns with heat-resistant masonry, mostly in industry.
Hardscape and landscape stonework
Patios, retaining walls and fireplaces for homeowners, where a small business can do well.
Driver's license and a truck
Stone is heavy and the yard is never near the job.
A photo record of your work
Stonework sells itself in pictures. Photograph every wall you build.
Scaffold and fall protection training
Short courses that every commercial site asks for.
Spanish or English as a second language
Masonry crews are often bilingual, and being the person who can talk to everyone gets you promoted.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at 7am, set up staging and a mortar board, snap a line and check your levels. Then the same loop for eight hours: pick a stone, decide where it wants to sit, shape it with a hammer and chisel if it does not fit, butter it and set it. Step back every few courses and look down the line. Clean the joints before the mortar sets hard, because that is what people will actually see.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
O*NET (Occupational Information Network), the federal career database, counted about 9,300 stonemasons in 2025 and rates employment from 2025 to 2035 as a decline. About 500 openings a year are still expected.
The International Masonry Training and Education Foundation trains union craftworkers in brick, stone, tile, marble, terrazzo, pointing and cleaning, refractory, plaster, cement and mosaic work, so a mason can change specialty without starting over.
Repairing an old stone building means finding stone from the same kind of quarry and mixing mortar soft enough not to crack the original. Modern hard mortar on old stone does real damage, which is why restoration masons are paid for judgment, not speed.
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.
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