Occupation / job
Fence Erectors
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
Fence Erectors pays $47,980, effectively level with the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — $2,040 apart, which is inside the noise of a single year’s survey. Treat this as an average-paying occupation and decide it on everything else.
At 24,480 employed, this is a mid-sized occupation. In a normal city that means several possible employers and a genuine market rate, which is the point at which knowing the numbers on this page starts to be worth money.
These roles suit people who have built a specific competence around construction — a hazard, an inspection, an installation type — and want the site work without the trade’s full apprenticeship.
How long it takes to become one of the 24,480 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.
Who should not do this
Between $40,400 and $58,610 there is $18,210, a ratio of 1.5x. Tight distributions are predictable, and predictable cuts both ways: little risk of being badly underpaid, little prospect of doing much better.
The 25th percentile of $40,400 is only $9,620 off the $50,020 national midpoint. Being in the worst-paid quarter of Fence Erectors still means being paid close to what the average American job pays.
Avoid it if you need a large employer base; these roles are thin on the ground outside major markets.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 24,480 people employed as Fence Erectors; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $40,400 and $58,610, a ratio of 1.5x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Fence Erectors is the cost of living where you do it.
The middle half of this field earns between $40,400 and $58,610. That is $18,210 of range, with $47,980 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $58,610. Reaching it from the $47,980 midpoint is $10,630 a year; reaching it from the $40,400 that the bottom quarter of Fence Erectors earn is $18,210.
$10,630 separates $47,980 from the $58,610 top quarter, while only $7,580 separates it from $40,400. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Fence Erectors has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Fence Erectors is $23.06 an hour. The quarters sit at $19.42 and $28.17, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $47,980 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Fence Erectors, the hourly figure is $47,980 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else