Cut and set natural stone into walls, steps and buildings that will still be standing in a hundred years.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$57,390
Apprentice or helper
$39,300
Top tenth
$86,180
The national median is $57,390 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $39,300. Stonemasons have their own line in the federal wage survey, separate from brick and block masons. Union commercial work and skilled restoration work sit at the top of the range.
Around $39,000 to $46,000
Apprentice or mason tender mixing mortar and moving stone
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.
Up to $86,180 at the top tenth
Journeyman on commercial or restoration work
Weather cuts into a year's earnings in cold states, so annual pay depends heavily on how many months you can actually work. Running your own small stone business raises the ceiling and the risk.
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 licence 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.
Free 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 specialise 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, respected and better paid than new construction.
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 and paid at industrial rates.
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.
Federal projections expect stonemason employment to fall about 5 percent over the decade to 2035, roughly 500 fewer jobs, and the reason given is the rising cost of natural stone pushing builders toward cheaper materials.
Across all masonry specialties, about 18,400 openings a year are expected nationally, almost all of them from masons retiring or moving to other work rather than new positions.
The International Masonry Training and Education Foundation trains union craftworkers in brick, stone, tile, marble, terrazzo, plaster, cement, refractory 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.
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.