Pipefitter vs Ironworker: Which Trade Is Right for You?

Start with the structural difference, because it shapes every number on this page.

"Pipefitter" is one title inside BLS's combined Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters category (SOC 47-2152), whose example titles also include plumber, master plumber, steamfitter, sprinkler fitter, gas plumber, and industrial gas fitter — BLS publishes no pipefitter-only wage or outlook inside it.

"Ironworker" is its own federal category: Structural Iron and Steel Workers, SOC 47-2221, with its own employment, wage, and outlook figures.

The differences that show up in the federal data:

• Pay. The pipe-trades category's median wage was $63,800 in May 2025 against $62,780 for ironworkers — close, with the pipe-trades figure the higher of the two. At the 90th percentile the two categories are nearly tied: $108,420 against $108,260.
• Growth. The pipe-trades category is projected to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035 against 3.1% for ironworkers; the all-occupation average is 3.5%.
• Openings. About 42,000 projected openings a year on average for the pipe trades against about 5,900 for ironworkers.
• Size. 465,840 pipe-trades wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025 against 68,380 ironworker wage-and-salary jobs, with the self-employed excluded on both sides.

So the short answer is a trade-off rather than a winner: the pipe-trades category pays slightly more at the median, is much larger, and is projected to grow faster; the ironworker category is a smaller field with its own separate federal numbers.

An ironworker vs pipefitter search is this same comparison from the other side — the numbers do not change with the word order.

A plumber vs ironworker search lands on the same data for the same reason: BLS publishes no plumber-only split either, so the category medians here are the closest the federal numbers get.

If you want the pipe-trades side in depth first, start with our pipefitter career guide.

On the pipe-trades side, BLS describes pipefitters and steamfitters as installing and maintaining pipes that may carry chemicals, acids, and gases, mostly in manufacturing, commercial, and industrial settings, with steamfitters specializing in systems for liquids or gases at high pressure.

The category's largest employer group is building equipment contractors, with 340,140 of its wage-and-salary jobs, ahead of utility system construction (14,960) and local government, excluding schools and hospitals, as BLS designates it (11,480).

The industrial end of that work is its own specialty — our industrial pipefitter guide covers it in depth.

Where the pipe-trades jobs sit: the states with the most are California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210), and Illinois (16,750).

The five largest metro counts are 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).

On the ironworker side, our research for this page does not include a task-level duty list for the trade, so we won't invent one.

What the data does show is where the jobs sit: foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors employ 32,390 of the category's 68,380 wage-and-salary jobs, with nonresidential building construction (12,960) and a narrow fabricated-metal-product grouping (3323 and 3324 only, 4,690 jobs) next.

The states with the most ironworker jobs are Texas (9,700), California (7,110), Arizona (3,980), Indiana (2,750), and Illinois (2,740).

The metro lists put the footprint difference in scale.

The ironworker category's largest metro counts are Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ (3,470), Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX (3,000), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (2,850), New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ (2,300), and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (2,150).

Four of the five metros appear on both lists — New York-Newark-Jersey City, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, and Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands — but every pipe-trades count in its top five is five figures, while the ironworker list tops out at 3,470.

If the day-to-day work is what will decide this for you, ask the contractors and apprenticeship programs doing it where you would live: the honest gap in this comparison is task-level ironworker duty research, and the people hiring for the trade can describe it directly.

The one measure our saved data supports for both categories is BLS's 2023–2024 job-transfer/restriction (DJTR) rate from its Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses tables for private industry — cases per 10,000 full-time-equivalent workers counted in the DJTR column.

Structural iron and steel workers recorded 115.1.

Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters recorded 67.2.

The saved research holds more case types for the pipe-trades category than for ironworkers.

For the pipe trades, the same BLS table records 144.5 days-away-from-work cases per 10,000 full-time-equivalent workers in 2023–2024, against 86.6 for all occupations, and a DART rate — days away, restricted, or transferred — of 211.7.

The vault carries no ironworker counterpart for either figure, so DJTR remains the one case type the two categories can be compared on like-for-like.

BLS's own career write-up names the hazards it lists for plumbers and pipefitters: cuts from sharp tools, burns from hot pipes and soldering equipment, and falls from ladders.

For the ironworker category our research carries no equivalent hazard list, so we won't write one — the safety programs of the contractors you would work under are the place to ask how each trade manages its risks on the job.

Here is the May 2025 distribution, the same series and the same statistic on both sides — national wage figures from BLS's OEWS, annual and hourly:

Read the columns and one swap stands out: the ironworker figure is higher at the 10th percentile ($44,580 against $44,150), and the pipe-trades figure is higher everywhere else — the 25th percentile, the median, the mean, the 75th, and the 90th.

No row is far from the other.

Pair pay with opportunity: BLS projects 6.8% employment growth from 2025 to 2035 for the pipe-trades category (510.6k jobs rising to 545.2k, self-employed included) with about 42,000 openings a year on average, against 3.1% growth (68.3k to 70.4k) and about 5,900 openings a year on average for ironworkers — with 3.5% the all-occupation average.

Geography moves both numbers.

By annual median wage, the highest-paying metros for the pipe-trades category are 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); for ironworkers they are Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH ($120,840), Trenton-Princeton, NJ ($116,360), Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ ($114,570), Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA ($111,500), and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA ($111,440).

Each list is its own ranking within the same series, so read each against its own label.

Our pipefitter salary page carries the national tables, and the state-by-state figures — which cover the combined occupation, since BLS has no pipefitter-only state wage — live on our plumber salary pages.

The industries at the top of each list are small niches, not typical jobs.

For the pipe-trades category, Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution pays a $115,310 annual median, with Petroleum and Coal Products Manufacturing ($106,550) and Pharmaceutical and Medicine Manufacturing ($105,800) next; for ironworkers, Local Government, excluding Schools and Hospitals, as BLS designates it, pays $116,590, with Facilities Support Services ($95,140) and a narrow Machinery Manufacturing grouping (3331, 3332, 3334, and 3339 only, $92,470) next.

Three measurement rules apply to every figure on this page.

OEWS counts wage-and-salary workers only, with the self-employed excluded, and its wages include base pay, commissions, and production bonuses but exclude overtime, shift differentials, and non-production bonuses such as sign-on pay — so real annual earnings for workers who put in overtime can exceed the figures.

Annual figures assume a 2,080-hour year.

And the left-hand column is the whole pipe-trade bundle: BLS publishes no pipefitter-only wage, so read this as category against category, not as an offer you can expect by title.

This page compares careers using federal statistics; it is career information, not legal advice. Confirm entry requirements, apprenticeship terms, and pay with the apprenticeship programs and contractors you would train and work under before you make decisions based on them.