What the trades earn, by city.
How much do plumbers, HVAC techs, and painters actually make? The hourly wage is where every honest answer starts. Plumbing leads the trades we track at $34.70 an hour nationally, about $72,176 a year, and geography moves pay hard: the same concrete trade earns $24.28 an hour in Dallas but $58.09 in New York, a 139% gap. These are the BLS metro wages our index prices labor with, the same numbers behind every project figure on this site.
The wage, and the true cost of an hour.
The BLS median is what the tradesperson earns. The loaded cost adds payroll burden, the taxes, insurance, and benefits an employer pays on top of the wage, and is the real cost of putting that hour on your job.
| Trade | BLS median wage | Loaded cost per hour | Highest-wage metro | Lowest-wage metro | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing | $34.70 | $47.47 | New York $61.56 | Tampa $26.73 | 130% |
| Kitchen | $32.29 | $44.64 | New York $55.85 | San Antonio $25.15 | 122% |
| Bath | $32.14 | $43.79 | New York $55.30 | San Antonio $25.37 | 118% |
| HVAC | $31.14 | $43.54 | New York $54.05 | Tampa $26.89 | 101% |
| Concrete | $29.81 | $41.70 | New York $58.09 | Dallas $24.28 | 139% |
| Painting | $26.64 | $36.54 | New York $47.40 | San Antonio $21.39 | 122% |
Wages are the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics medians used to price each trade's labor in the index. Loaded cost = wage plus the payroll burden fraction from our cost model.
What that wage makes in a year.
The same medians as annual salaries, converted the way BLS does it: hourly wage times 2,080 hours, a standard full-time year. Overtime, side work, and self-employed rates land above these figures; they are the median employed baseline for each metro.
| Trade | Median annual salary | Highest-metro annual | Lowest-metro annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing | $72,176 | New York $128,046 | Tampa $55,598 |
| Kitchen | $67,163 | New York $116,168 | San Antonio $52,312 |
| Bath | $66,851 | New York $115,024 | San Antonio $52,770 |
| HVAC | $64,771 | New York $112,414 | Tampa $55,931 |
| Concrete | $62,005 | New York $120,831 | Dallas $50,502 |
| Painting | $55,411 | New York $98,601 | San Antonio $44,491 |
Annual = BLS median hourly x 2,080, the BLS full-time convention. Metro figures use each metro's own median wage from the table above.
Every tracked market.
| Metro | Concrete | Plumbing | HVAC | Painting | Bath | Kitchen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | $24.40 | $28.85 | $29.07 | $24.26 | $28.13 | $27.17 |
| Austin | $24.75 | $30.65 | $30.74 | $22.59 | $28.77 | $27.90 |
| Boston | $39.25 | $48.19 | $41.48 | $33.71 | $44.59 | $43.80 |
| Charlotte | $26.05 | $27.95 | $28.82 | $21.83 | $27.75 | $27.11 |
| Chicago | $49.88 | $54.70 | $45.01 | $40.12 | $49.54 | $49.36 |
| Columbus | $32.75 | $33.24 | $33.04 | $27.39 | $30.28 | $31.51 |
| Dallas | $24.28 | $29.94 | $29.69 | $22.47 | $27.65 | $26.66 |
| Denver | $29.11 | $34.57 | $35.72 | $28.70 | $31.97 | $32.43 |
| Houston | $24.56 | $30.70 | $29.03 | $22.63 | $28.76 | $27.79 |
| Kansas City | $31.36 | $38.00 | $31.19 | $26.88 | $33.82 | $33.90 |
| Las Vegas | $33.57 | $33.76 | $30.04 | $29.38 | $34.56 | $34.31 |
| Los Angeles | $39.95 | $42.81 | $39.83 | $32.98 | $40.25 | $41.34 |
| Miami | $25.20 | $27.80 | $28.85 | $24.33 | $26.82 | $26.77 |
| Minneapolis | $35.25 | $44.25 | $36.67 | $29.01 | $38.46 | $38.02 |
| New York | $58.09 | $61.56 | $54.05 | $47.40 | $55.30 | $55.85 |
| Philadelphia | $40.86 | $51.48 | $42.73 | $35.57 | $46.44 | $45.03 |
| Phoenix | $27.94 | $33.95 | $29.91 | $25.98 | $29.95 | $29.93 |
| Portland | $37.94 | $48.42 | $34.95 | $27.08 | $41.24 | $41.11 |
| Raleigh | $25.77 | $28.99 | $28.12 | $22.11 | $25.69 | $25.70 |
| San Antonio | $24.91 | $27.87 | $28.44 | $21.39 | $25.37 | $25.15 |
| San Diego | $36.63 | $37.78 | $36.52 | $28.76 | $35.56 | $36.62 |
| Seattle | $41.69 | $46.27 | $41.07 | $30.00 | $43.45 | $42.98 |
| Springfield | $28.54 | $33.99 | $27.45 | $24.69 | $28.43 | $28.41 |
| St Louis | $33.81 | $38.98 | $32.69 | $30.15 | $34.96 | $35.12 |
| Tampa | $25.32 | $26.73 | $26.89 | $23.16 | $25.80 | $26.16 |
Why the invoice says more than the wage.
A shop billing well above the wage in these tables is not pocketing the difference. The chain runs: the wage the tradesperson earns, plus roughly 38% payroll burden for taxes, insurance, and benefits, then the truck, tools, non-billable drive time, office, and licensing that overhead covers, then materials for the job, and finally the contractor margin that keeps the shop alive. Our cost index traces that full chain for every project we price, so you can see what a fair total looks like in your metro instead of guessing from an hourly number.
Trade pay, answered.
How much do plumbers make in 2026?
The median is $34.70 an hour, about $72,176 a year. Across the metros we track it runs from $55,598 in Tampa up to $128,046 in New York. Figures are BLS metro medians; annual assumes the BLS 2,080-hour full-time year.
How much do kitchen remodelers make in 2026?
The median is $32.29 an hour, about $67,163 a year. Across the metros we track it runs from $52,312 in San Antonio up to $116,168 in New York. Figures are BLS metro medians; annual assumes the BLS 2,080-hour full-time year.
How much do bathroom remodelers make in 2026?
The median is $32.14 an hour, about $66,851 a year. Across the metros we track it runs from $52,770 in San Antonio up to $115,024 in New York. Figures are BLS metro medians; annual assumes the BLS 2,080-hour full-time year.
Why do contractors charge more per hour than these wages?
The wage is what the tradesperson earns, not what an hour costs to sell. Add roughly 38% payroll burden for taxes, insurance, and benefits, then the truck, tools, non-billable drive time, and office that overhead covers, then materials, and finally the contractor margin that keeps the shop running. The invoice rate carries the whole shop, not just the wage.
Which city pays the trades the most?
New York tops the wage table for 6 of the 6 trades we track. Wage geography follows metro cost of living and local labor supply, which is why the same trade can earn over twice as much in one market as another.
Citing these numbers? Here is the source line.
Free to cite with attribution. Copy a formatted citation, or grab the HTML credit line to link back to the live data.
Source: <a href="https://thefatbook.com/cost-index/labor-rates/">2026 Trade Labor Rate Study | TheFatBook</a>