Plumbing comes out ahead on the federal numbers.
Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters earned a $63,800 median wage in May 2025 against $60,580 for carpenters, and their occupation is projected to grow 6.8% through 2035 versus 3.9%.
Carpenters are the larger trade, with more jobs and more openings each year.
Which trade is better depends on the work you want — this plumber vs carpenter comparison covers pay, training, physical demands, and outlook.
Plumber vs carpenter: the short answer
On the federal numbers, plumbing edges carpentry on pay and growth; carpentry wins on size.
The median plumber, pipefitter, or steamfitter earned $63,800 in May 2025; the median carpenter earned $60,580.
Both figures come from the same BLS wage survey, so the comparison is like-for-like.
The differences that are real, all from the same federal data:
- Pay. The plumbing bundle's median runs $63,800 against $60,580 for carpenters, and its wage is higher at every percentile BLS publishes, from the 10th through the 90th.
- Growth. Plumbing employment is projected to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035 against 3.9% for carpenters; the all-occupation average is 3.5%.
- Openings. About 42,000 openings a year for the plumbing bundle against about 62,800 for carpenters.
- Size. BLS counted 670,090 carpenter jobs nationally in May 2025 against 465,840 on the plumbing side — wage-and-salary workers, self-employed excluded.
A naming note first: "plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters" is a single BLS occupation (SOC 47-2152), so every plumbing figure here covers the whole pipe-trade bundle — BLS publishes no plumber-only split.
Carpenters are their own occupation (SOC 47-2031).
With that framing set, the sections below walk each difference.
Choosing on the work rather than the wage is the better starting point — our plumber career guide covers the plumbing role from apprentice to master.
Weighing the other mechanical trade too?
Our plumber vs electrician comparison lines that one up.
Pay compared
However you search it — plumber vs carpenter salary or carpenter vs plumber salary — the May 2025 numbers run one direction: the plumbing bundle sits above the carpenter line on the median, the mean, and every percentile BLS publishes.
| Measure (BLS OEWS, May 2025) | Plumbers, pipefitters & steamfitters (47-2152) | Carpenters (47-2031) |
|---|---|---|
| Median wage | $30.67/hr · $63,800/yr | $29.12/hr · $60,580/yr |
| Mean wage | $34.70/hr · $72,170/yr | $31.55/hr · $65,630/yr |
| 10th percentile | $21.22/hr · $44,150/yr | $19.43/hr · $40,410/yr |
| 25th percentile | $24.13/hr · $50,190/yr | $23.32/hr · $48,510/yr |
| 75th percentile | $40.92/hr · $85,110/yr | $36.94/hr · $76,830/yr |
| 90th percentile | $52.13/hr · $108,420/yr | $48.03/hr · $99,910/yr |
What the figures measure: wage-and-salary workers only, with the self-employed excluded.
The wage figures include base pay, commissions, and production bonuses, but exclude overtime, shift differentials, and non-production bonuses such as sign-on pay.
Annual figures assume 2,080 paid hours, and half earn more than the median, half less.
The highest-paying metro areas for each trade sit well above its national median: the plumbing bundle's top metro is San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA at a $107,560 annual median, with Chicago-Naperville-Elgin at $103,380; carpenters' top metros are Kankakee, IL at $95,280 and Urban Honolulu at $94,310.
The very top of each trade sits in small niches, not typical jobs: Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution pays the plumbing bundle's highest industry median at $115,310, and a narrow chemical-manufacturing grouping tops carpenters at $109,560.
We keep the state-by-state tables on our plumber salary pages rather than re-printing them here.
Training and licensing
On the plumbing side, BLS says 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 each year plus technical instruction; programs are sponsored by unions, trade associations, and businesses.
Apprentices earn less than fully trained plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters, but their pay increases as they learn to do more.
Two federal baselines apply to registered apprenticeships, whatever trade they train: an occupation must require at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning to be apprenticeable, and the Department of Labor recommends — but does not require — at least 144 hours of related technical instruction per year.
Federal law also sets no percentage pay steps.
A registered program must pay a progressively increasing schedule of wages, with an entry wage not below the FLSA minimum wage where applicable (or higher where another law or a collective bargaining agreement requires), and the percentage ladder comes from each registered program's standards or collective bargaining agreements, not from federal law.
What a licence requires after that is its own layer, beyond this page's sourced numbers — our plumber license guide walks that ladder.
On the carpentry side we keep the scope honest: this site's sourced research covers HVAC and plumbing licensing, not carpentry, so we won't put a year count or an hour total on the carpentry path, and we can't rank the two trades' entry time.
Confirm both paths where you live before you commit.
Rules change — confirm before you enroll
Physical demands and working conditions
The trades work in different places.
Building equipment contractors employ 340,140 of the plumbing bundle's jobs, with utility system construction (14,960) and local government excluding schools and hospitals, as BLS designates it (11,480) next.
Carpenters concentrate on the building side: residential building construction employs 204,290 of them, with building finishing contractors (112,950) and nonresidential building construction (108,660) next.
BLS says most plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters work full time, including nights and weekends, and plumbers are often on call for emergencies.
In 2025, 65% of plumber, pipefitter, and steamfitter jobs were with plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors and 8% were self-employed.
On the measured-injury side, the plumbing bundle recorded 144.5 days-away-from-work cases per 10,000 full-time workers in 2023–2024 against 86.6 for all occupations — our full write-up is on is plumbing dangerous.
An honest scope note: our sourced research includes no carpenter schedule profile or injury rate, so this section can't rank the two trades' physical toll.
What it can do is put plumbing's measured numbers on the record — an injury rate above the all-occupation line, and hours that include emergency calls — and leave the carpentry side to the sources that measure it.
Job outlook: growth and openings
Both trades are projected to grow faster than the 3.5% all-occupation average through 2035, but not at the same pace.
BLS's Employment Projections (2025–35, released August 27, 2026) put the plumbing bundle at 6.8% growth — 510.6k jobs rising to 545.2k, self-employed workers included — with about 42,000 openings a year on average.
Carpenters are projected at 3.9% — 889.7k rising to 924.7k — with about 62,800 openings a year.
In absolute openings carpenters come out ahead: about 62,800 a year against about 42,000, on projected employment bases of 889.7k against 510.6k.
Where the jobs sit: in May 2025 wage-and-salary counts, the plumbing bundle held 465,840 jobs against 670,090 for carpenters.
Most plumbing jobs: California 47,660; Texas 44,090; Florida 29,260; New York 23,210; Illinois 16,750.
Most carpenter jobs: California 100,750; New York 40,630; Florida 39,300; Texas 33,540; Pennsylvania 30,630.
They share anchors, too — New York-Newark-Jersey City tops both lists, with 21,040 plumbing-side jobs and 34,210 carpenter ones.
Read together: plumbing grows faster off a smaller base, and carpentry is the bigger occupation with more annual openings.
If plumbing wins for you, our guide to how to become a plumber walks the entry routes step by step, and you can browse open plumber jobs to see what employers near you are hiring for.
Still comparing?
The plumber career guide is the hub for the whole plumbing cluster, and the plumber vs electrician page lines up the third trade.
This page compares careers using federal statistics; it is career information, not legal or licensing advice. Confirm licensing and apprenticeship requirements with your state licensing board — or the city or county where licensing is local — before you make decisions based on them.