A pipefitter installs and maintains pipes that may carry chemicals, acids, and gases — work the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) places mostly in manufacturing, commercial, and industrial settings.
Steamfitters, a closely related specialization, focus on systems for liquids or gases at high pressure.
Federal statistics combine pipefitters with plumbers and steamfitters in one occupation, SOC 47-2152, whose median wage was $30.67 an hour ($63,800 a year) in May 2025.
What is a pipefitter?
A pipefitter is a mechanical trades worker who installs and maintains pipes that may carry chemicals, acids, and gases.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) places the work mostly in manufacturing, commercial, and industrial settings, where the piping serves a process — moving material from one piece of equipment to another under pressure, at temperature, or both.
The line between pipefitter and plumber is about the system, not the pipe.
BLS describes plumbers as installing and repairing water, gas, and other piping systems in homes, businesses, and factories, including fixtures such as bathtubs and toilets and appliances such as dishwashers and water heaters.
Pipefitters' systems carry chemicals, acids, and gases and keep industrial processes running, which is why the trade lives on industrial and commercial jobsites more than in houses.
In the federal data the two share one occupation.
O*NET merged the old Pipe Fitters and Steamfitters code with Plumbers into a single occupation, 47-2152.00 Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, and the old separate codes are no longer in use.
The combined occupation explicitly includes sprinkler fitters, and its sample job titles range from Pipe Welder and Pipefitter to Drain Technician and Fire Sprinkler Service Technician.
One federal code, several trades
What pipefitters install: process, steam, chilled water, gas, and chemical
The short version of the pipefitter job description is: build and maintain the pipes that move whatever the facility makes, heats, cools, or burns.
The BLS scope is deliberately broad — pipes that may carry chemicals, acids, and gases — which covers chemical and acid process lines, gas piping, and the feed and return lines around industrial equipment.
Steam is its own specialty inside the combined occupation.
BLS says steamfitters specialize in systems for liquids or gases at high pressure.
The United Association (UA), the piping trades' union, describes its steamfitters as fabricating, installing, maintaining, and repairing high-pressure systems that move steam, hot water, and other industrial fluids — including chilled water and compressed air — with work that includes welding, rigging, and hydrostatic and pneumatic testing.
Core duties and responsibilities follow the systems: reading the piping layout, fabricating and setting the pipe, joining and supporting it, then pressure-testing the system before it goes into service.
The UA's steamfitter description — fabrication, installation, maintenance, repair, and testing — is a fair sketch of the work at the top end of the trade; helpers and apprentices start with material handling and simpler assembly under supervision.
- Chemical and acid process piping
- Gas piping for industrial processes
- High-pressure steam and hot-water systems (the steamfitter specialty)
- Chilled water and compressed-air systems
Where pipefitters work: commercial, industrial, and power
BLS places pipefitters and steamfitters mostly in manufacturing, commercial, and industrial settings.
The industry data show what that means in practice: in May 2025, building equipment contractors — the specialty contractors that install building systems — employed 340,140 of the combined occupation's workers, ahead of utility system construction at 14,960 and local government (excluding schools and hospitals) at 11,480.
Some industrial settings pay far above the norm but employ few people.
The highest-paying industries for the occupation by annual median wage in May 2025 were electric power generation, transmission and distribution at $115,310, petroleum and coal products manufacturing at $106,550, and pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing at $105,800 — small niches, not typical jobs, as BLS's own industry data show.
Geography matters too.
The states with the most jobs in the occupation in May 2025 were California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210), and Illinois (16,750).
The metro areas with the most jobs were New York-Newark-Jersey City (21,040), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (15,690), Chicago-Naperville-Elgin (12,750), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (11,980), and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands (10,980) — industrial and dense-commercial markets, which is where the work concentrates.
Pipefitter levels from helper to foreman
The trade runs on a helper-to-apprentice-to-journeyman-to-foreman ladder.
Federal wage data cannot follow one person up that ladder — there is no pipefitter-only or journeyman-only figure — but three separate BLS categories line up with three of its rungs, and their medians show the shape of a pipefitting career in pay terms.
| Rung | Federal category | Median pay, May 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Helper | Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-3015) | $20.36/hr · $42,360/yr |
| Journeyman pipefitter | Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152, all trades combined) | $30.67/hr · $63,800/yr |
| Foreman | First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers (SOC 47-1011, all construction trades) | $38.42/hr · $79,920/yr |
Read the table as occupation medians, not a guaranteed pay ladder: the helper row covers helpers across the pipe trades, the middle row is the combined occupation rather than pipefitters alone, and the foreman row is a broader all-trades supervisor category.
Helpers are a large rung — 44,330 jobs nationally in May 2025 — and supervisors of construction trades, the closest federal category to a working foreman, had a median of $38.42 an hour ($79,920 a year).
The levels themselves are set by employers, union contracts, and apprenticeship programs, not by the federal data.
How to become a pipefitter
Most people enter the pipefitter trade through an apprenticeship.
BLS says most plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters learn through a 4- or 5-year apprenticeship with about 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training each year, plus technical instruction.
The routes below are the common ways in; the apprenticeship is the one the data point to.
Start on a crew as a helper
Helpers stage material, cut and prepare pipe, and learn the jobsite next to journeyworkers. It is a paid entry point — the federal government counts pipe-trades helpers as their own occupation — and a way to show an apprenticeship program you can do the work.Apply to a pipefitter apprenticeship
Sponsors set their own entry requirements and application windows. Union sponsors include UA locals — the United Association lists pipefitters among its trades and says it represents approximately 409,000 members across North America. Non-union sponsors exist as well: Indiana's regulator, for example, lists the ABC of Indiana Apprenticeship Trust among its approved apprenticeship schools. Ask the sponsors near you what kind of program they run.Consider a training program first
Pre-apprenticeship and trade-school programs can prepare you for an apprenticeship's entry testing. They do not replace the apprenticeship hours; treat any program's promises about time-to-completion as something to verify with the sponsor directly.Work up through the levels
Complete the apprenticeship, work as a journeyman pipefitter, and take on foreman responsibilities as crews and contractors entrust them to you. The pay shape of that ladder is in the section above.
Timing and entry rules are set program by program — some sponsors take applications once a year, others year-round — so the practical first step is contacting the sponsors near you and asking what they require this cycle.
Entry rules and licensing are local
Pipefitter pay
The best federal benchmark is the combined occupation: Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152) earned a median of $30.67 an hour or $63,800 a year in May 2025, per the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (OEWS, released May 15, 2026).
The mean — the simple average — was $34.70 an hour or $72,170 a year.
The percentiles show the range the trade pays.
In May 2025, the 10th percentile was $21.22 an hour ($44,150 a year), the 25th was $24.13 ($50,190), the 75th was $40.92 ($85,110), and the 90th was $52.13 ($108,420).
That top figure means at least 10 percent of the occupation earned more than $108,420 a year — the combined survey's stand-in for experienced, overtime-heavy, and high-cost-market work.
Place matters as much as experience.
The highest-paying metro areas by annual median wage in May 2025 were San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA ($107,560), Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN ($103,380), Bellingham, WA ($102,750), Minneapolis-St.
Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI ($101,630), and Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA ($101,010).
State-by-state tables live on our pipefitter salary page — and remember the survey measures the combined pipe trades, not pipefitters alone.
What BLS pay does and does not include
Is pipefitting a good career?
The demand case is solid.
BLS projects employment in the combined occupation to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035, against a 3.5% average for all occupations, with an average of 42,000 openings a year.
The 90th percentile of pay in the combined occupation was $108,420 a year, the top of the range the federal survey shows for the pipe trades.
The physical cost is real: the trade recorded 144.5 days-away-from-work cases per 10,000 full-time workers in 2023-2024 against 86.6 for all occupations, and BLS lists common injuries as cuts from sharp tools, burns from hot pipes and soldering equipment, and falls from ladders.
The day-to-day is demanding in specific ways.
O*NET survey data show 21% of plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters work in cramped spaces or awkward positions every day and 43% at least weekly; 25% are exposed to high places daily.
BLS says most work full time, including nights and weekends, and are often on call to handle emergencies; in O*NET survey data, 27% report a typical week of more than 40 hours.
The trade suits people who like exacting, physical build work and can take that schedule — the career evaluation pages in this cluster break the trade-offs down further.
Union membership shapes part of the trade.
BLS does not publish a union membership rate for pipefitters specifically, and our research found no primary source for a union pay premium in these trades — but the broad groups are measured: 16.4% of wage-and-salary workers in construction and extraction occupations were union members in 2025, and 12.5% in installation, maintenance, and repair occupations.
The UA says it represents approximately 409,000 plumbers, pipefitters, sprinkler fitters, HVACR service technicians, welders, and related trades across North America.
As for automation, one 2013 estimate — Frey and Osborne's Oxford study, widely criticized and best read as a single data point — put the computerisation probability for the combined trades at 0.35: higher than the 0.15 it gave electricians, lower than the 0.65 for HVACR mechanics and the 0.82 for sheet metal workers.
This guide is career information, not legal or licensing advice. Training and licensing rules differ across states and cities — confirm anything you rely on with your state licensing board or local building department.