Occupation / job
Construction and Building Inspectors
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Construction and Building Inspectors pays $74,690 at the midpoint, 49% above the $50,020 national figure. Premiums that size are rationed by something; find out what before the salary does your thinking for you.
146,720 people are employed as Construction and Building Inspectors. At that size there is a real ladder and enough churn that experience can be sold to a competitor rather than only accumulated where you are.
These construction-adjacent roles suit people who want site work organised around a specific competence — an inspection, a hazard, a system — rather than around one of the classic trades.
We carry no verified training length for Construction and Building Inspectors — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter earn below $58,860 and a quarter above $94,710: a 1.6x ratio, $35,850 between the ends. That is an ordinary working spread, which also means experience and location explain most of it and there is no shortcut through the middle.
Even the bottom quarter of Construction and Building Inspectors earns $58,860 — $28.29 an hour and $8,840 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Very little of this distribution is badly paid.
Avoid it if you need a broad employer base; these roles concentrate in a small number of firms.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 146,720 figure counts people already working as Construction and Building Inspectors, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
A 1.6x ratio is the most common shape in this data: some room to move, none of it quick. Read $74,690 as where you might be after years in Construction and Building Inspectors, and $58,860 as where you would start.
Put in money rather than ratios: $58,860 at the 25th percentile, $74,690 at the midpoint, $94,710 at the 75th. $35,850 separates the quarter of Construction and Building Inspectors at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $58,860 and $94,710 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $74,690. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $20,020; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $35,850.
From $74,690 it is $15,830 down to the bottom quarter and $20,020 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Construction and Building Inspectors is $35.90 an hour. The quarters sit at $28.29 and $45.53, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Construction and Building Inspectors for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $74,690 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $74,690 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Construction and Building Inspectors, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else