Occupation / job
Upholsterers
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
$46,340 against a $50,020 all-occupation midpoint puts Upholsterers $306 a month below the middle of the American labour market — close enough that the spread below matters more to your outcome than the headline does.
With 20,140 employed as Upholsterers, most metros have a working market: several employers, visible turnover, and the ability to change jobs without moving house.
Textile, apparel and furnishings work suits people with genuine hand skill and speed, in a field where domestic production is a smaller part of the market than it once was.
How long it takes to become one of the 20,140 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
The middle half runs $37,340 to $54,580 — $1,436 a month between the quarters, a 1.5x ratio. Spreads this narrow are usually set by a grade or a scale, so the negotiation you are imagining probably is not available.
A quarter of Upholsterers earn under $37,340, which is $12,680 short of the $50,020 national midpoint. Assume you start there and check whether the arithmetic still works.
Avoid it if you need a field with domestic depth; much of this production has moved offshore and stayed there.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 20,140 people employed as Upholsterers; 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
Top quarter to bottom quarter is 1.5x. In a band that narrow, $46,340 is a genuinely representative number for Upholsterers and the main variable left is where you live.
In cash terms the middle half of Upholsterers runs $37,340 to $54,580 — $17,240 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $46,340.
Between $37,340 and $54,580 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $46,340. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $8,240; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $17,240.
There is $9,000 between $37,340 and $46,340, and $8,240 between $46,340 and $54,580. The lower half of the range is marginally the longer one — worth knowing if you would be entering Upholsterers at the bottom of it.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Upholsterers is $22.27 an hour. The quarters sit at $17.95 and $26.24, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Employers reported these wages for people already working as Upholsterers. The self-employed are excluded, so $46,340 does not describe an independent doing the same work.
The hourly number on this page is $46,340 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Upholsterers, 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