Occupation / job
Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
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
Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters pays $63,800 against $50,020 across all occupations — $1,148 a month more. Every premium is paid for something: find out whether it is the schooling, the licence, the hours or the risk before you decide you want it.
465,840 people work as Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters — large enough that the occupation is always hiring somewhere and always losing people somewhere else. Constant demand is security; it is rarely leverage.
These trades suit people who want a skill that is portable, credentialed by doing rather than by studying, and demonstrably useful to somebody in every town.
We carry no verified training length for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
$50,190 to $85,110 — 1.7x, or $2,910 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
The 25th percentile is $50,190, $170 above the $50,020 typical American job. A floor above the national midpoint is rare, and it is worth more than an equivalent amount of upside.
Avoid it if the cumulative physical wear is not something you have thought about honestly at the age you would be finishing.
You will not find a "what share make it" figure here. 465,840 is a headcount of the employed, which is a numerator without a denominator — everyone who qualified and never got hired is missing from it, and we will not estimate them to complete a percentage.
What the spread tells you
At 1.7x between $50,190 and $85,110 this is a normally shaped occupation. $63,800 is what the middle of Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters earns after the years it takes to get there, which is not the same as what it offers you now.
In cash terms the middle half of Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters runs $50,190 to $85,110 — $34,920 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $63,800.
The 75th percentile is $85,110. Reaching it from the $63,800 midpoint is $21,310 a year; reaching it from the $50,190 that the bottom quarter of Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters earn is $34,920.
It is $13,610 from $63,800 down to $50,190 but $21,310 up to $85,110. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters is $30.67 an hour. The quarters sit at $24.12 and $40.91, 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 Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $63,800 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, the hourly figure is $63,800 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