The plumber job outlook is strong on every federal measure: BLS projects employment of plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035 — much faster than the 3.5% average for all occupations — with about 42,000 openings a year, against a base of 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs.
Whether that amounts to a shortage is a different claim, and this page tests it against the numbers rather than the headlines.
Is there a plumber shortage?
Shortage is a word commentators and trade groups use; it is not a number BLS publishes.
What BLS publishes is demand data, and the demand data is unambiguous: about 42,000 openings a year for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters, employment projected to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035 against a 3.5% all-occupation average, from a base of 510.6k jobs including the self-employed in 2025.
A trade hiring on that scale is not fading — whatever adjective you prefer for it.
The demographic version of the shortage story — that plumbers are aging out faster than the workforce around them — does not survive contact with the federal age data.
In BLS's 2025 Current Population Survey, the median age of employed plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters was 40.2, below the 42.1 median for all American workers.
The trade is slightly younger than the average workplace, not older, so the average plumber approaching retirement is a story the survey does not tell.
What the age data does support is replacement demand: a substantial cohort of working plumbers is near traditional retirement age, and replacing that cohort — not new growth — is where most of the trade's hiring comes from.
How large that cohort is, and why it still does not amount to a retirement wave, is the arithmetic of the section below.
Whether all of this adds up to a career you should pick is a separate question — the pay, the physical toll and the entry routes are weighed honestly in our guide to is plumbing a good career.
This page stays on the demand side.
Check the data vintage in any outlook story
How fast is plumber employment projected to grow?
The current projections are BLS's Employment Projections 2025–2035, released on August 27, 2026.
For plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters, BLS projects 6.8% employment growth — from 510.6k jobs in 2025 to 545.2k in 2035, a decade gain of 34.5k jobs — with about 42,000 openings per year on average.
Both job counts include the self-employed.
The benchmark matters: BLS projects total U.S. employment to grow 3.5% over the same period, from 170.3 million to 176.2 million jobs.
At 6.8%, the plumbing trades sit at nearly double the national rate.
For the HVAC side of the same picture, plus where the jobs are and what they pay, see our HVAC and plumbing industry statistics.
If you have seen 7% instead of 6.8%: the Occupational Outlook Handbook rounds the same projection to 7% and characterizes it as growth much faster than the average for all occupations.
The table figure is 6.8%; the handbook prose rounds to 7%.
Same data, no contradiction — and if you have seen an older 2024–34 range, that series has been superseded.
Why openings exceed growth (retirements, turnover)
Put the two numbers side by side and the plumbing labor market makes sense: about 42,000 openings a year, but only 34.5k net new jobs across the entire decade.
BLS counts an opening whether it comes from a newly created position or from one vacated by a worker who retires or moves into a different occupation — so most plumbing openings are replacement demand, not expansion.
The replacement load is visible in the age structure: about 115,000 of the 624,000 employed plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters were 55 or older in 2025 — 18% of the workforce.
Even if the trade never added another job, exits at that scale guarantee years of hiring just to stand still.
Two clarifications keep this honest.
First, the churn is not only retirement: a median age of 40.2 against 42.1 for all workers means the trade is young overall, and plumbers who switch occupations count in the openings too.
Second, the openings figure is a ten-year projection average, not a promise that any particular shop is hiring in any particular month.
The churn is also why the entry door stays open — and if you are weighing the trade itself, our plumber career guide covers what the work involves and how new plumbers enter it.
Where plumbing demand is growing
Start with where the jobs sit today.
By industry, the May 2025 payroll count splits this way: building equipment contractors — the mechanical-contractor industry group — employed 340,140 of the trade's 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs; utility system construction employed 14,960; and local government outside schools and hospitals employed 11,480.
This is overwhelmingly contractor work on buildings and water systems, not factory or utility payroll.
By geography, the biggest state job counts in May 2025 were California (47,660), Texas (44,090), Florida (29,260), New York (23,210) and Illinois (16,750).
The largest metro concentrations were New York-Newark-Jersey City (21,040 jobs), 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).
The trade concentrates where buildings and people do — the projections describe a national market, not a boomtown map.
You will also meet specific growth-driver claims: data center construction, municipal lead service line replacement programs, new housing.
Our research did not confirm plumbing-specific growth figures for any of those drivers, so this page will not repeat numbers it cannot source — treat precise figures you see elsewhere with care and check them against BLS's published data.
What the verified data supports is the industry and geography picture above.
For the live market rather than the ten-year projections, current openings are on our plumber job listings.
What the outlook means for pay
An outlook is a jobs forecast, not a pay forecast: BLS projects openings, not raises, and publishes no shortage premium.
What the demand side means for pay is pressure, not a promise — a trade hiring about 42,000 people a year into 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs has to keep recruiting.
What BLS measured as trade-wide pay in May 2025 was a median of $30.67 an hour, or $63,800 a year, for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters combined.
What the outlook does not set is your wage: location, employer and licence rung move individual pay far more than a ten-year national projection does.
The numbers behind those differences live on the pages that own them — the state-by-state and metro tables on our plumber salary pages, and the rung-by-rung breakdown, apprentice to master, in our plumber pay scale guide.
This page is career information, not legal or pay advice. Wage figures are BLS OEWS May 2025 and Employment Projections 2025–35; licensing requirements, where they exist, are set by your state licensing board or the city and county where licensing is local — confirm specifics with them.