Occupation / job
Solar Photovoltaic Installers
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
A $53,140 midpoint puts Solar Photovoltaic Installers $260 a month ahead of the $50,020 typical American job. Real, but small enough that a change of employer or metro would move it as much as the occupation itself does.
At 31,350 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 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 Solar Photovoltaic Installers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The quarters sit at $46,700 and $62,870, $1,347 a month apart at a ratio of 1.3x. Narrow enough that what you can expect is close to what everyone else gets.
At $46,700 — $22.45 an hour — the 25th percentile of this field sits essentially at the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Being in the bottom quarter of Solar Photovoltaic Installers still means being paid like the average American worker.
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. 31,350 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
A 1.3x spread means the top quarter of Solar Photovoltaic Installers is not doing a different job from the bottom quarter, just a slightly better-paid version of the same one. Between $46,700 and $62,870 is the whole of the negotiation.
In cash terms the middle half of Solar Photovoltaic Installers runs $46,700 to $62,870 — $16,170 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $53,140.
Getting to $62,870, the 75th percentile, is worth $9,730 a year more than the $53,140 midpoint and $16,170 more than the $46,700 a quarter of Solar Photovoltaic Installers settle for.
$9,730 separates $53,140 from the $62,870 top quarter, while only $6,440 separates it from $46,700. The range leans upward, which means the middle of Solar Photovoltaic Installers has more room above it than a symmetric reading of the median would suggest.
Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $25.54 at the midpoint for Solar Photovoltaic Installers, $22.45 at the 25th percentile and $30.22 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.
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 Solar Photovoltaic Installers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $53,140 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $53,140 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else