Cut and set tile and stone on floors, walls and showers. Work that people look at every day for thirty years.
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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
$55,690
First years
$37,140
Top tenth
$86,110
The federal wage survey counts this trade as tile and stone setters, so stone masons who work in slab are in the same pot. The national median is $55,690 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $37,140. Union commercial work in big northern cities sits near the top, residential remodeling in small towns near the bottom.
About $18 an hour
Roughly what the bottom tenth of the trade earns, around $37,140 a year
Your first year you mostly mix mud, carry tile, set up the wet saw and clean. Nobody hands a beginner a hotel lobby floor.
$86,110 and up
Experienced setters doing large format tile, stone and custom showers
A lot of tile work is paid by the square foot rather than by the hour, so a fast, clean setter with their own tools can out-earn the hourly numbers. Speed only pays if the work passes inspection.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Apprenticeship training in this trade is funded by the trade itself, so there is no tuition to find and you are paid while you learn. The low end is a starter set of hand tools, trowels, floats, levels and nippers, at $400 to $900. The high end adds an optional community college tile or flooring certificate at $1,500 to $4,000 and a wet saw of your own at $600 to $2,500, which you only need once you take your own jobs. Almost nobody in this trade borrows money for school, and a Pell Grant of up to roughly $7,400 a year would cover a short certificate anyway.
Almost nobody in this trade borrows for school. If you do take a community college course, fill in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid first, because a Pell Grant of up to roughly $7,400 a year is money you never pay back.
Pension and annuity in a union shop
Money goes in by the hour worked, so steady hours matter more than the headline rate.
Health coverage through the fund
Paid for by banked hours in union programs, which is the main reason people join.
Free upgrade courses
Union training centers run short classes on stone, waterproofing and large format tile at no charge to members.
Prevailing wage on public jobs
Schools, courthouses and airports must pay a published local rate, usually well above the local average.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
No degree. You get hired, you get paid, and you learn on your knees next to someone who has done it for twenty years.
High school diploma or an equivalency certificate
Grade 12
Math and shop classes help. Employers care that you are 18, reliable and can lift boxes of tile all day.
Get hired as a helper, or apply to an apprenticeship
Weeks to months
Two doors in: a tile contractor who takes you on as a helper, or a registered apprenticeship run by a union training center or a state agency.
Register the apprenticeship
Days
A registered program is signed off by the federal Office of Apprenticeship or your state apprenticeship agency, which locks in your hours and your raise schedule.
Paid work plus classroom training
2 to 4 years
Registered apprenticeships in the trowel trades run on roughly 2,000 hours of paid work plus about 144 hours of classroom instruction a year.
Journeyman setter, then certification
After the hours
Finish the hours and you work at the full rate. Many setters then sit the Certified Tile Installer test to prove it to customers.
Math
Every job is area, layout and figuring how many boxes of tile a room takes without wasting a pallet.
Shop or construction technology
Proves to an employer that you can handle a saw and turn up on time.
Art or drafting
Tile is a finish trade. Pattern, symmetry and where the cut lands are the whole job.
English
Reading manufacturer instructions for mortars and waterproofing is not optional. Get it wrong and the shower leaks.
No state licenses tile setters as workers, so a contractor can hire you the week you decide to try it. What states do license is the contractor. If you want to take money straight from a homeowner for a job above a set dollar amount, states such as California, Florida and North Carolina make you pass a contractor exam, show years of experience and carry insurance. Check your own state before you print business cards.
A tile contractor
The most common route by far. You start as a helper and move up as you get faster.
Union training centers
The International Masonry Institute runs training for the trowel trades through local centers and a national training campus in Bowie, Maryland.
Community and technical colleges
Short flooring and tile certificates exist in most states, usually one or two semesters.
Manufacturer schools
Mortar and waterproofing companies run free one or two day classes on their own systems.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Certified Tile Installer
A hands-on and written test from the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation, which calls it the only outside assessment of installer skill the tile industry recognizes.
Waterproofing and shower systems
Showers are where tile jobs fail and where the callbacks come from. Setters who can build one properly charge more.
Large format tile and thin panels
Big slabs need different tools, two people and a flat substrate. Fewer setters can do it.
Natural stone and slab work
Marble, granite and terrazzo repair. Slower, fussier, better paid.
A driver's license and a van
Jobs are scattered and you carry your own saw.
Knee care habits
Good pads, a kneeling board and stretching. This is the trade that ends careers through knees.
Photos of every job
Tile is sold on looks. A phone full of finished bathrooms is your real resume.
Spanish or English as a second language
Crews on many sites are bilingual, and being the person everyone can talk to gets you the foreman job.
Tile is one of the easiest trades to start a small business in, because the tools fit in a van and homeowners hire directly. That is also why it is crowded. The setters who make real money are the ones who quote properly, answer the phone and finish when they said they would, not the fastest ones. Expect to spend a year building a name before the work comes to you.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
On site around 7am. Check the floor is flat and dry, snap your layout lines, and decide where the cut tiles land so the room looks right. Then mix mortar, set tile, and cut around toilets, vents and door jambs on the wet saw outside. Most of the day is spent on your knees. Late afternoon you grout what you set yesterday, sponge it clean, and wash every tool before the mortar hardens.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Tile does not crack because the tile is weak. It cracks because the floor under it flexes. A big part of the trade is testing and fixing the subfloor before a single tile goes down, which is why good setters spend the first morning on a job with a level instead of a trowel.
The Ceramic Tile Education Foundation describes its Certified Tile Installer program as the only outside assessment of installer skill and knowledge that the tile industry recognizes. You build a real section of work in front of a grader, and plenty of people fail the first time.
Dry-cutting tile and stone throws silica dust that scars lungs permanently. That is why you see wet saws, water-fed grinders and vacuums on tile jobs, and why federal safety rules put hard limits on how much of that dust a worker can breathe.
Properly set tile lasts longer than almost anything else in a house. Roman and Ottoman floors are still walked on. Most trades get torn out in a renovation. Tile often is the renovation.
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.