What should a master plumber job description include? (free template)

Duties and responsibilities.

Write the description before the job goes up.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, essential functions are the fundamental duties of the position rather than the marginal ones, a written description prepared before advertising or interviewing is evidence of what is essential, and a function can be essential because the job exists to perform it, because few employees are available to share it, or because it is highly specialised.

At the master tier the duty list does a second job: it states, before the interview, which work this person is expected to run and sign off on rather than assist on.

Split the work the way your trucks actually run.

Residential or commercial.

Service and repair, new construction and remodels, or both.

Then the tier-specific duties you are actually buying: running permitted installations from rough-in to final inspection, supervising journeymen and apprentices on crew work, taking the escalated callbacks, and — where your state or city requires it — carrying the licence the company contracts under.

A master who has spent the year on commercial permit work reads a residential service posting as a different job, so the split is the fastest fit signal your posting sends.

Then list the day-to-day work as your shop runs it: diagnosing leaks and stoppages, explaining repair options and pricing to customers, pulling permits and shepherding inspections, documenting every job in your field software, keeping truck inventory straight.

If you want the role defined from the plumber's side first, what a master plumber does is our career guide's subject; this page stays on the employer's side of it.

Physical demands, stated plainly.

Before a conditional offer you may state the job's physical requirements — lifting a set weight, climbing ladders, working in tight spaces — and ask whether the applicant can meet them.

In the posting, that does double duty: it tells candidates what the day costs their body, and it gives you compliant wording to screen on later.

Licence and certification requirements — worded exactly.

"Master plumber" is not one credential everywhere: the tier comes from a state plumbing board — or a city or county — and the names are the issuer's own.

A generic "state master plumber licence required" line reads to a working master as an employer who has not checked their own market — in some states it demands a tier that does not exist.

Write the exact licence class your state, or city, requires, with the state named.

As of September 2026, 23 states and the District of Columbia issue a statewide plumber licence with the classic apprentice → journeyman → master ladder.

Texas licenses through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners as Tradesman Plumber-Limited, Journeyman Plumber, Master Plumber and Plumbing Inspector, so "Master Plumber (TSBPE)" is a real, checkable line there.

Georgia licenses a Journeyman Plumber plus Master Plumber Class I and Master Plumber Class II — when a state splits the tier into classes, the class belongs in your line.

Not every state issues a master tier at all.

Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma and South Dakota top out at an individual contractor licence instead of a master, and Alaska, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington stop at journeyman-level licences — a posting demanding a "master plumber licence" in any of those nine states screens out candidates on a tier the state does not issue.

Illinois and North Carolina have no master rung either — Illinois tops out at the licensed plumber and North Carolina licenses technician and contractor classes — while Delaware licenses at the master tier without a journeyman rung at all.

Seven states issue no state plumber licence: Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and Wyoming, where licensing sits with cities and counties or an industry board — so the master you hire in New York City holds a city licence — one that carries its own written exam on the city's construction codes plus a practical exam.

Ohio licenses plumbing contractors — businesses — only, with no individual worker licence to name.

Where the licence you need is local, name the city or county in the posting, not the state.

Then the stakes, because at this tier the licence line can be a company line: in a group of states the master licence — or the state's equivalent top-tier licence — is what authorizes a plumbing business to contract: Georgia, Maine, Kentucky, Delaware, Montana, Wisconsin, Texas, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Connecticut and Rhode Island, plus New York City and Nebraska's city licences.

A Texas business that advertises or offers plumbing, for example, must secure the services of a Responsible Master Plumber.

If that is your state, the hire carries your company's contracting authority, and our guide to licence qualifiers covers what the seat demands.

Two wording habits finish the section.

First, the honest obtain-line: "or ability to obtain within [N] days" is only honest when the board's own path can deliver it — an applicant cannot sit the Texas Master Plumber exam without holding a journeyman licence for at least two years, or one year plus completion of a U.S. Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship program, so a promise measured in weeks screens out reality there.

Second, the placeholder until you have looked the name up: "[State] [licence name and class] (or ability to obtain within [N] days)", as in the template below.

Pre-offer, you may ask applicants about required licences and certifications and ask them to describe or demonstrate how they would do the work.

Verify before you post.

Licence structures change, and licensing is often local.

Confirm the current tier names, classes and any qualifier registration with your state plumbing board — or the city or county where licensing is local — before the posting goes up, and treat this page as employer information, not legal advice.

Our guide to how to hire a master plumber covers the verification routine.

Pay and pay-plan disclosure.

Post a real range — the low, the high, and how the plan works.

Many states now require that range in the posting itself — as of September 2026, our research verified posting requirements in California (employers with 15 or more employees), Colorado, Washington State (15 or more), the District of Columbia, Maryland, Maine (10 or more, from July 29, 2026), Massachusetts (25 or more, from October 29, 2025), Minnesota (30 or more), Illinois (15 or more), New Jersey (10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks, effective June 1, 2025), New York State (4 or more), Vermont (5 or more) and Virginia (from July 1, 2026), with some of the laws reaching jobs performed at least partly in the state.

Delaware's law is signed but does not take effect until September 2027, and it will not apply to employers with 25 or fewer employees.

Connecticut and Rhode Island do not require the range in the posting itself — Connecticut requires giving the wage range on request or by the time of an offer, Rhode Island on request and before pay is discussed.

Our research did not confirm a posting requirement in Hawaii or in Nevada, and city ordinances were outside our check, so verify each state — and each city — where the job sits.

The state-by-state detail, with thresholds and effective dates, is our guide to pay transparency laws by state.

Several of these laws reach past the number.

Colorado requires a benefits description and how and when to apply in every posting.

Illinois lets a hyperlink to a public page carrying the pay scale and benefits satisfy the rule.

Minnesota and Washington require a general description of benefits.

Washington, D.C. requires the minimum and maximum projected pay in every listing and disclosure of healthcare benefits before the first interview.

New York's labor department requires postings to clearly state when a position is commission-based, and Vermont goes the other way: an ad for a commission-paid job need only disclose that it is commission-based.

Name the pay plan itself: hourly, flat rate, commission, salary, or a mix — and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act follows the pay, not the label.

A flat-rate (per-job) plumber is still owed overtime: the regular rate is total job pay divided by hours actually worked, plus an extra half-time for each hour over 40.

Commissions — including on equipment sales or service tickets — count in the regular rate too, and a spiff schedule you announce in advance is a promised, non-discretionary bonus no matter what you call it.

The narrow overtime exemption for commissioned employees of a retail or service establishment applies only when the regular rate exceeds 1.5 times the minimum wage and more than half the pay over a representative period is commissions — whether a shop like yours qualifies is decided case by case.

One number not to print: a "master premium".

BLS counts the trade in one combined occupation — Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152), with Master Plumber among its example titles — and publishes no separate wage or outlook for the trade's tiers, master plumbers included, so we have no verified federal figure for the tier to budget from.

Anchor the range to the offers you are competing with in your metro; our master plumber salary page carries the whole-occupation percentiles by state.

Schedule, on-call, truck and tools.

In our view these four lines can matter more to an applicant than any perk list, so state each one instead of letting the hire discover it.

Schedule: the working days and hours and the honest seasonal shape of the work — if summer means six-day weeks of emergency calls, say that here.

On-call: whether there is a rotation, how often it lands on one plumber, and how after-hours call-outs are paid — with the pay treatment stated in the pay section rather than nowhere.

Our guide to on-call pay policy covers the structures.

Truck and tools: whether the truck is company-provided and whether it goes home, what the company supplies — fuel card, tablet, the large and specialty tools — and what the plumber is expected to bring, such as hand tools.

If you fund licence renewals, continuing education or certification fees, say so plainly.

And where this hire carries your company's qualifier seat, say so in the posting in plain words — that conversation should start before the offer, not at the exit interview.

Good plumbers read postings the way managers wish candidates read resumes: fast, and hunting for a reason to stop.

The fastest reasons to stop are all copy problems you can fix before you post.

No pay range.

A posting that hides the number reads as a number worth hiding.

In the states above where the law requires the range in the posting itself — at your employer size — it is also a legal exposure, not just a conversion problem.

A master licence line that fits no state.

A generic "state master plumber licence required" tells a working master you have not checked your own market — and in the states that top out at contractor or journeyman-level licences, or license through cities and counties, there may be no state master licence to name in the first place.

Name the tier, the class and the issuing state — or the city — or state plainly that you will help the right candidate reach it.

An obtain-within deadline the board's path cannot deliver.

The "or ability to obtain within [N] days" line is honest only when the licensing path can produce the licence in that window — the licence section above covers the Texas example, where the master exam requires two years at journeyman first.

Print a deadline the board's own rules make impossible and the posting advertises that it was written without checking.

Age-coded wording.

Terms like "young", "recent college graduate", "boy" or "girl" violate age-discrimination rules unless a statutory exception applies, and help-wanted ads may not show a preference for, or discourage, applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age 40 or older, disability or genetic information.

Describe the work, not the person you imagine doing it.

Questions the posting cannot ask.

Stating the physical demands and asking whether the applicant can meet them is allowed.

Asking about past job injuries or workers' compensation history before an offer is not — keep those questions out of the posting, the application form and the phone screen.

Referral-only hiring.

Recruiting mainly by word of mouth through a mostly one-group workforce can itself be discriminatory if almost all hires come from that group.

Post the job publicly.

Small-shop assumptions.

Federal EEO laws cover private employers with 15 or more employees and the age law those with 20 or more, but state laws often cover smaller shops, so check yours.

Federal contractors must include the equal-consideration tagline in job ads; many other employers add an equal-opportunity line voluntarily.

Screening rules you have not checked.

Background-check, ban-the-box and paid-sick-leave rules vary by state and city and were not verified state by state in our research — confirm the rules where you hire before you screen.

Eligibility verification, before the first day.

While applications come in, check whether your state mandates E-Verify.

Florida requires private employers with 25 or more employees to use it for new hires, and North Carolina requires it of employers with 25 or more employees in the state.

South Carolina requires every private employer to verify every new employee within three business days, and Arizona, Alabama and Mississippi require every employer to use it too.

The thresholds reported for Georgia, Tennessee and Utah were not verified in our research, so check your state's current rule directly.

Federal contractors covered by the FAR E-Verify clause must enroll within 30 days of contract award.

With the copy fixed, put the posting where masters actually look: browse current master plumber jobs to see what candidates see on the board.

When you are ready to run the whole process — sourcing, screening, the qualifier paperwork — our guide to how to hire a master plumber picks up where this template ends, and how to write a job ad for HVAC technicians covers the ad-copy rules that apply to a plumbing posting too.

This page is employer career information, not legal advice. Confirm licence requirements with the issuing board — the state, or the city and county where licensing is local — pay-posting rules with each state labor department, and employment-law questions with an employment attorney.