Plumbers install and repair water, gas, and other piping systems in homes, businesses, and factories.
They set plumbing fixtures such as bathtubs and toilets and appliances such as dishwashers and water heaters.
The trade runs on a ladder — apprentice, journeyman, master — and it stretches from a clogged drain in a house to piping in a factory.
This guide covers the work, the settings, the ladder, and the pay.
What is a plumber?
A plumber is a tradesperson who installs and repairs the piping systems that carry water, gas, and other materials through homes, businesses, and factories — along with the fixtures and appliances attached to them, from bathtubs and toilets to dishwashers and water heaters.
That is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' definition of the occupation, and it covers more ground than the job title suggests.
Federally, plumbing sits inside one broad occupation code.
O*NET merged the old Plumbers code (47-2152.02) and the Pipe Fitters and Steamfitters code (47-2152.01) into a single occupation, 47-2152.00 Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters — the old codes are "no longer in use" — and the combined occupation explicitly includes sprinkler fitters too.
So when federal data talks about "plumbers," it is counting pipefitters, steamfitters, and sprinkler fitters right along with them; the differences between those trades are about scope of work, not about which occupation code they land in.
Plumbing is one of the skilled construction trades: a craft you learn through supervised, paid on-the-job work plus classroom study, climbed rung by rung from apprentice to journeyman to master plumber.
What does a plumber do day to day?
The core of the job is installing and repairing piping: running new water, gas, and drain lines; joining pipe and fittings; setting fixtures such as bathtubs and toilets; and connecting appliances such as dishwashers and water heaters.
Repair is the other half of the work — tracking down leaks and blockages and replacing worn-out pipe and fixtures to get failed systems back in service.
Within the combined occupation, pipefitters and steamfitters handle the industrial end of that work.
BLS describes them 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 United Association, the plumbing and pipefitting union, describes steamfitters' work as fabricating, installing, maintaining, and repairing high-pressure systems that move steam, hot water, and other industrial fluids — chilled water and compressed air included — with welding, rigging, and hydrostatic and pneumatic testing in the mix.
So "plumber" is a wide word.
The same occupation covers a clogged kitchen line in a house and high-pressure piping in a factory, and the pace differs just as much: new-construction work follows the building schedule, while service work follows the phone call.
Where do plumbers work: residential, commercial, industrial, service
BLS's definition names the settings: homes, businesses, and factories.
Residential plumbers run and repair the water, drain, and gas lines in houses and apartments; commercial work covers business settings of every kind; industrial work is the pipefitter and steamfitter territory described above.
Across all of it, the work splits between installing new systems and servicing existing ones — the service side that keeps water running and drains clear long after the building is finished.
Most plumbers work for contractors.
In 2025, 65 percent of plumber, pipefitter, and steamfitter jobs were with plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors, and 8 percent of these workers were self-employed — BLS counts 510,600 jobs in the occupation including the self-employed.
The industries employing the most of these workers in May 2025 were building equipment contractors (340,140), utility system construction (14,960), and local government excluding schools and hospitals (11,480).
What are the levels of plumber: apprentice, journeyman, master?
The trade has three broad rungs, and the names are consistent even where the rules behind them are not.
An apprentice is the learning rung: working alongside experienced plumbers and earning a wage while the skills build.
A journeyman is the middle rung — past the apprentice stage and doing the trade's day-to-day work.
A master plumber is the senior rung, the one the other two build toward.
What each rung is called, and what a license at each rung actually allows, is set by state and local law, and it differs by jurisdiction.
Some states license plumbers at the state level; in others, licensing happens at the city or county level.
Titles do not transfer cleanly across state lines either — a "journeyman" in one state and a "journeyman" in the next can sit behind different rules.
That is why this guide stays at the level of the ladder itself: the entry requirements for each rung — training, exams, experience, and what each license permits — are exactly the kind of detail that changes from place to place, so treat any specific claim you see online as a question for the licensing authority, not an answer.
How do you become a plumber and how long does it take?
In broad strokes, the route into plumbing is the ladder itself.
You learn the trade in paid, supervised on-the-job training — the apprentice stage — adding classroom study along the way, and you move up to journeyman once you meet the qualifications where you live.
As for how long it takes: there is no single national number, because the training routes and requirements are defined jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
The timeline someone quotes from another state may simply not apply to you.
Licensing rules are set locally — confirm before you commit
How much do plumbers make?
First, what the data covers: BLS reports pay for the combined occupation — Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152) — so every figure below includes pipefitters, steamfitters, and sprinkler fitters.
There is no plumber-only federal wage, and BLS data cannot produce a plumber-versus-pipefitter pay comparison.
The numbers come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey for May 2025, released May 15, 2026, and they cover wage-and-salary workers, not the self-employed.
Nationally, the median wage was $30.67 an hour, or $63,800 a year — half of these workers earned more, half less.
The mean, or average, was $34.70 an hour, or $72,170 a year.
The spread within the occupation is wide: workers at the 10th percentile earned $21.22 an hour ($44,150 a year), while workers at the 90th percentile earned $52.13 an hour ($108,420 a year).
Place moves the numbers a lot.
The top-paying states by annual median wage were the District of Columbia ($101,020), Illinois ($99,950), Oregon ($97,050), Minnesota ($94,410), and Alaska ($93,920).
Among metro areas, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California led the country at $107,560, with Chicago-Naperville-Elgin ($103,380), Bellingham, Washington ($102,750), Minneapolis-St.
Paul ($101,630), and Portland, Oregon ($101,010) close behind.
The survey's highest-paying industries — electric power generation, transmission and distribution ($115,310), petroleum and coal products manufacturing ($106,550), and pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing ($105,800) — are small niches, not typical jobs.
What the survey does and does not count: overtime pay, shift differentials, and non-production bonuses such as sign-on bonuses are excluded — so techs who log overtime can out-earn the survey figures — while base pay, commissions, and production bonuses are included.
For the full state-by-state tables, see our plumber salary page.
Career information, not pay or legal advice. Figures are BLS survey data for the combined plumber, pipefitter, and steamfitter occupation (OEWS May 2025); actual earnings depend on location, employer, and experience.
Is plumbing a good career?
The outlook numbers are strong.
BLS projects employment of plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters to grow 7 percent from 2025 to 2035 — much faster than the average for all occupations, which is 3.5 percent — with about 42,000 openings a year.
It is also a big occupation to grow from.
BLS's payroll survey counted 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025; the household survey counted 624,000 employed plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters in 2025 including the self-employed.
The two surveys measure different things, which is why you will see both numbers quoted.
The workforce skews heavily male — women were 3.1 percent of employed plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters in 2025 — and 30.3 percent of these workers were Hispanic or Latino.
Union membership is published only for broad occupation groups: 16.4 percent of wage-and-salary workers in construction and extraction occupations were union members in 2025, and 12.5 percent in installation, maintenance, and repair occupations.
There is no plumber-specific federal union rate, so be skeptical of anyone quoting one.
Whether those numbers add up to a good career for you depends on the rest of the picture — the settings, the pace, and the kind of work described above — weighed against what you want from your working life.
The demand side, though, is about as clear as federal data gets.
Find plumber jobs near you
Plumbing work concentrates where construction and population are.
The states with the most plumber, pipefitter, and steamfitter jobs in May 2025 were California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210), and Illinois (16,750) — wage-and-salary counts from BLS's payroll survey.
The busiest metro areas 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).
On HVACHires, plumbing listings come straight from HVAC and plumbing contractors hiring right now.
Browse plumber jobs to see what is open near you, and check the plumber salary page for pay by state.