The highest-paying plumbing jobs sit in three places: industrial pipe work in niche industries, the licensed-adjacent roles beside the wrench — estimator, inspector — and, outside every wage table, owning the contracting business.
BLS measured the median plumber, pipefitter or steamfitter at $63,800 a year in May 2025.
Below, every job and specialty the federal data can rank, with sources.
The highest-paying plumbing jobs ranked
There is no official ranking of plumbing jobs by pay, because the federal wage table prices the whole trade as one occupation.
BLS's OEWS program counted 465,840 wage-and-salary plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters (SOC 47-2152) in May 2025 — data released May 15, 2026 — at a median of $63,800 a year ($30.67 an hour) and a mean of $34.70 an hour ($72,170).
Drain technicians, medical gas plumbers, residential and commercial plumbers, journeymen and masters are all inside that one bucket; BLS publishes no separate wage for any of them.
What can be ranked honestly is where the money sits in the data that does exist.
Four places: niche industrial industries, where the trade's median runs to $115,310; the adjacent office and inspection roles that carry their own federal tables (estimators and building inspectors); commission-heavy service work, which the wage table only partly captures; and — outside every table — owning the contracting business, which the federal wage data does not count at all.
The spread inside the trade itself is wide.
The middle half earned between $50,190 and $85,110, and the top decile started at $108,420.
BLS does not publish what share earned six figures — only that the 75th percentile was $85,110 and the 90th was $108,420, so somewhere between 10 percent and 25 percent earned $100,000+ in OEWS-measured pay.
If you are still sorting out which job title is which, our guide to the types of plumbers lays out the roles first; this page prices them.
Service and drain commission roles
Service plumbing and drain cleaning are where commission pay usually comes up — an employer practice, not a federal statistic.
BLS publishes no wage for drain technicians or service plumbers as such — the combined 47-2152 bucket is the only federal figure — so any "average drain tech salary" you find online comes from job postings or surveys, not federal data.
Two measurement rules matter here.
OEWS wages do include commissions, production bonuses, incentive pay and tips.
But they exclude overtime pay, shift differentials and non-production bonuses such as sign-on bonuses — so a commission tech who runs heavy overtime can earn more than the published figures show, by an amount the data cannot say.
The commission structures themselves are set by each employer.
There is no verified national commission rate for service or drain work, and we will not invent one.
For the role itself, see our service plumber guide.
Medical gas and industrial
Medical gas work is a plumbing specialty, and like every specialty it has no wage line of its own in federal data.
BLS publishes no separate figure for medical gas plumbers, so no verified national number exists for what the credential adds; our medical gas plumber guide covers the work and the credential path.
Industrial pipe work is where the trade's own table does show a premium — by industry.
The highest-paying industries for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters in May 2025 were electric power generation, transmission and distribution at a $115,310 median, petroleum and coal products manufacturing at $106,550, and pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing at $105,800.
All three are small niches, not typical jobs.
Employer type moves the median less dramatically.
The trade's May 2025 medians by top industry: government employers excluding education and hospitals paid $71,660; manufacturing $65,770; heavy and civil engineering construction $63,270; and plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors $63,010.
Most of the trade works contractor-side: 340,140 of its wage-and-salary jobs sit in building equipment contractors, against 14,960 in utility system construction and 11,480 in local government outside schools and hospitals.
The industrial pipe work above sits in the same 47-2152 bucket as plumbing — BLS prices pipefitters and steamfitters together with plumbers, so there is no separate pipefitter wage to rank.
Our pipefitter career guide and pipefitter salary page show the same combined table from that side.
Inspector and estimator
Step off the tools and the wage tables change: plumbing's neighbouring occupations carry their own federal figures, and both beat the trade's $63,800 median.
Inspectors first.
BLS has no "plumbing inspector" wage — all construction and building inspectors share SOC 47-4011, and that broader category is the honest benchmark.
Its May 2025 median was $74,690 a year ($35.91 an hour), with a 90th percentile of $114,200.
Employment is projected flat from 2025 to 2035 — a 0.0 percent change — but replacement needs still create about 14,800 openings a year.
Estimators tell the same story with a higher ceiling.
BLS has only SOC 13-1051, Cost Estimators, all industries — the plumbing estimator title has no table of its own.
The category's median was $78,740 a year ($37.86 an hour), with a 90th percentile of $130,820, though employment is projected to decline 3.1 percent from 2025 to 2035 with about 17,600 openings a year.
Read both as broader categories, not role-specific wages.
An inspector or estimator figure you can defend is the category figure, named as such.
Owning the business
Business ownership sits outside the wage table entirely: OEWS counts employees only: self-employed owners and partners in unincorporated firms are excluded entirely.
A master plumber who qualifies their own contracting business earns whatever the business earns, and no federal statistic measures it.
That is why no honest national "plumbing business owner income" figure exists, and we will not manufacture one.
What the data does show is the employee pay range inside the contractor industry itself: within plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors (NAICS 238220), the trade counted 330,570 plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters at a $63,010 median, with a 10th percentile of $43,720 and a 90th percentile of $107,780 (the top tenth earned more) — employees only, owners not counted.
Where plumbing contractors are licensed, which licence tier the business needs, and what it lets the qualifier do, is set by your state licensing board — or by your city or county where licensing is local.
Our master plumber guide covers the tier and how it is earned; the master plumber salary page shows the trade's tables, which measure the combined occupation rather than the master tier alone; and the plumber career guide maps the whole ladder.
Contractor licence rules are set by your board
Which plumbing jobs pay the most?
Among the federal figures on this page, ranked by annual median: industrial pipe work in the niche industries ($105,800 to $115,310), then estimators ($78,740), building inspectors ($74,690), government-sector plumbing ($71,660), manufacturing ($65,770), and the trade overall at $63,800.
Two ways of earning sit outside that ranking: commission service work, which the wage table only partly measures, and business ownership, which it does not measure at all.
So the honest answer to "which plumbing job pays the most" has two layers.
Among the jobs BLS measures, the premium goes to where the work is done — the niche industrial industries — and to the licensed-adjacent roles with their own tables.
Outside everything BLS measures sits business ownership, whose earnings no federal statistic records.
This page ranks the jobs; our plumber pay scale article breaks the same data down by level instead — apprentice to journeyman to master.
Ranked list with pay ranges
Every figure below is an annual median from BLS OEWS May 2025; the list covers the cuts cited on this page, not every industry BLS publishes.
Percentile ranges for these industry cuts are not in our sources.
We rank by median only, never mixing means and medians into one list, because the two statistics rank employers and places differently.
| Rank | Job or cut | Annual median | 10th–90th range | What the figure measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters in electric power generation, transmission and distribution | $115,310 | — | industry median, SOC 47-2152 — a small niche |
| 2 | Plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters in petroleum and coal products manufacturing | $106,550 | — | industry median, SOC 47-2152 — a small niche |
| 3 | Plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters in pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing | $105,800 | — | industry median, SOC 47-2152 — a small niche |
| 4 | Cost estimators (all industries) | $78,740 | $48,530 – $130,820 | closest category — plumbing estimators have no table of their own |
| 5 | Construction and building inspectors | $74,690 | $47,140 – $114,200 | closest category — plumbing inspectors have no table of their own |
| 6 | Plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters in government, excl. education and hospitals | $71,660 | — | industry median, SOC 47-2152 |
| 7 | All plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters | $63,800 | $44,150 – $108,420 | the combined trade, every tier and title |
| 8 | Plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors (NAICS 238220) | $63,010 | $43,720 – $107,780 | 330,570 plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters employed at plumbing and HVAC contractors (SOC 47-2152 within NAICS 238220) |
Two rows the table cannot hold.
Plumbing business owners: outside OEWS entirely, earnings unmeasured.
Commission service and drain technicians: inside the combined trade figures with commissions included, but with no wage line of their own.
Treat any "#1 highest-paying plumbing job" list that quotes specific figures for those two as unsourced.
What drives higher pay: license, specialty, union, commission, location
Five levers, in the order the data supports them.
- Location. Metro medians were led by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA at $107,560, then Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN at $103,380, Bellingham, WA at $102,750, Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI at $101,630 and Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA at $101,010. But the biggest job markets are not the top-paying ones: the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metros hold the most jobs — 21,040, 15,690 and 12,750 — and only Chicago also makes the pay list.
- Specialty and industry. The niche industrial industries pay the trade's highest measured medians — electric power generation, transmission and distribution at $115,310 tops the table. The same caveat as above applies: these are small niches, not typical jobs.
- Union membership. BLS publishes no plumber-specific union wage premium, and our research found no verified one. What the federal union data does show is the broad occupation group: full-time union members in construction and extraction occupations had median weekly earnings of $1,561 in 2025, against $1,004 for non-union workers in the same group. That is an occupation-group comparison, not a plumber wage — and a raw gap, not adjusted for occupation mix, region, age or experience.
- Commission. Where service pay is commissioned, OEWS counts commissions, production bonuses, incentive pay and tips in its wages — while excluding overtime, shift differentials and non-production bonuses. Each employer sets its own commission plan; no verified national rate exists.
- License. BLS has no wage that separates journeyman from master, so the licence ladder cannot be ranked in dollars from federal data. Its pay value is structural: the ladder decides what work you can sell, and ownership sits outside the wage table entirely.
How long to reach the top roles
The rungs to the top are timed in apprenticeship years.
Per BLS, most plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters learn the trade through a 4- or 5-year apprenticeship, with typically 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training plus technical instruction each year; programs are sponsored by unions, trade associations and businesses.
The outlook makes the climb worth pricing: employment is projected to grow 6.8 percent from 2025 to 2035, from 510.6k to 545.2k jobs — a count that includes the self-employed — with about 42,000 openings a year, against a 3.5 percent all-occupation average.
The licensed tiers above the apprenticeship are timed by your state board, and the timing varies: each board sets the experience and exam its journeyman and master tiers require, and where licensing is local, the city or county does.
Confirm the sequence with the board that issues your licence before you plan around it.
The estimator and inspector roles are adjacent occupations, not licence steps — this page prices them because they are the plumbing-adjacent occupations carrying their own federal wage tables, not because the plumbing ladder leads to them.
Ownership is the one rung the data cannot time: it starts when you qualify, on a schedule your board sets.
Which states pay plumbers most
Ranked by annual median wage in May 2025, the top-paying states for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters were: District of Columbia $101,020; Illinois $99,950; Oregon $97,050; Minnesota $94,410; and Alaska $93,920.
BLS counts DC as a state in this table.
Only Illinois is also among the states with the most jobs — California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210) and Illinois (16,750) — so the biggest job markets and the best-paying ones are largely different places.
The full state-by-state tables are on our plumber salary page.
Career information, not legal or financial advice. Wage figures are BLS OEWS May 2025 as cited above; licence tiers, contractor qualification and their requirements are set by your state licensing board — or your city or county where licensing is local. Confirm the rules that apply to you with whoever issues them.