Commercial vs residential vs industrial electrician pay

Commercial and industrial work usually pays more than residential, and union scale shows it most clearly. At one local, IBEW 48 in Portland, the 2026 inside (commercial and industrial) journeyman wage is $65.50 an hour against $44.07 for a residential journeyman. On BLS May 2025 data, plant and utility electricians post higher medians than contractor electricians, though the top of the contractor lane runs higher than manufacturing.

01The lanes side by side

Here's each lane with the best US number we could find for it, and where it comes from.

Sources: IBEW Local 48 2026 wage information, BLS OEWS May 2025 national industry estimates, BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. BLS numbers are hourly straight time and include apprentices.

The headline: the gap between residential and commercial shows up clearly in union scale. The gap between contractor work and plant or utility work shows up in BLS. The national median for every electrician, all lanes, is in journeyman electrician pay in 2026.

02Why BLS can't settle residential vs commercial

BLS doesn't split electrical contractors into residential and commercial shops, so its numbers can't answer the question head on.

Most electricians, 541,390 of the 757,220 in the May 2025 OEWS count, work for "electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors." That one bucket holds the two-van residential shop and the 500-man commercial outfit. Its median is $29.60 an hour ($61,570 a year).

BLS does count electricians employed by homebuilders and by commercial general contractors. Their medians are almost the same: $30.57 for residential building construction and $30.77 for nonresidential building construction. But those are small groups (4,310 and 14,670 electricians) and they're not where most residential or commercial hands work.

So for residential vs commercial, the cleanest US numbers are union agreements that publish both rates for the same local.

03Residential vs inside, same local

At IBEW Local 48 in Portland, the residential journeyman wage is about two-thirds of the inside wage, and the gap in benefits is bigger than the gap in wages.

Sources: Local 48's 2026 residential journeyman and general journeyman (inside wireman) sheets. Packages also include a flex benefit ($1.66 residential, $2.65 inside).

Our math on that:

• Wage gap: $21.43 an hour. Residential is 67% of inside.
• Over 2,080 straight-time hours: $91,666 vs $136,240, a $44,574 gap before overtime.
• Retirement gap: $11.44 an hour, every hour worked.
• Package gap: $33.86 an hour.

That's one local, and residential and inside rates differ a lot from place to place. But it's the same hall, the same year and the same card level, which is as close to apples to apples as US data gets. If you're weighing that move, how to go from residential to commercial covers the skills commercial shops test for.

04Industrial: plant electricians vs construction hands

On BLS data, electricians employed by manufacturers make a higher median than those employed by electrical contractors, but a lower ceiling.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025, national industry-specific estimates (series via the BLS OEWS bulk files). Hourly straight time.

Read the columns, not just the median.

• The floor is higher in plants. A manufacturing electrician at the 25th percentile makes $28.66, about $5.43 more than his contractor counterpart (our math).
• The ceiling is higher at contractors. The contractor 90th percentile, $52.30, is $6.08 above manufacturing's. The top earners in the trade mostly work for contractors.
• Utilities top the table. A $51.27 median, with the middle half between $42.24 and $57.41. Lineman work is a separate BLS occupation (49-9051) and isn't in this number.

One catch on the word "industrial." In BLS data, an industrial construction hand working for an electrical contractor on a plant job is counted under electrical contractors, not manufacturing. The manufacturing number is the plant's own maintenance electricians.

05Government

Government electricians had a median of $79,820 a year in May 2025, the highest of the four big employer groups in the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.

That's about $38.38 an hour at 2,080 hours (our math), above the contractor median but below the contractor 90th percentile. If you're a top-quarter hand on a big commercial job, compare the whole package: ask about the pension, the pay steps, and how much overtime the job really runs.

06Hours and overtime by lane

Hours move the check as much as the rate does, and they change by lane.

BLS says it plainly: "During scheduled maintenance or on construction sites, electricians should expect to work overtime" (BLS OOH). Federal law requires time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek. It does not require daily overtime or weekend premiums (DOL Fact Sheet #23). Anything beyond that comes from your state or your agreement.

Union inside agreements often pay more than the federal floor. Seattle's IBEW Local 46 pays time and a half for the first 2 hours past 8 on weekdays and the first 8 on Saturday, and double time after that and on Sundays (Local 46 wage report).

What that means for your lane:

• Commercial and industrial construction. Scheduled overtime like 6-10s, tied to the GC's schedule. Big weeks, then it's over when the phase is. The math on those weeks is in what 6-10s really pay.
• Plant maintenance. Overtime comes with scheduled maintenance, shutdowns and outages. Ask how many a year.
• Residential new construction. Pace follows the builder. Ask how many hours the shop actually ran last quarter.
• Residential service. Pay is often tied to tickets or commission, so your hours and your sales move the check. One service ad posted Oct 14, 2026 in Tennessee paid $22.50 an hour for 30 days, then 100% commission at "20% of collected revenue" minus materials and labor, with a stated range of $46,800 to $100,000+ a year (job ad). One ad, not a norm. The full picture is in whether service electrician work is worth it.

07Which lane fits

The highest rate isn't always the best check, and the best check isn't always the best life.

1. Want the top rate and don't mind the road? Commercial and industrial construction, union or open shop, where the 90th percentile lives.
2. Want a steady 40 and a pension? Plant maintenance, utilities or government. Higher floor, lower ceiling.
3. Want home every night and your own truck? Residential service, if you can sell and the commission plan is fair.
4. Stuck in residential and want more? The skills gap is real: pipe, prints, gear, terminations. It's learnable, and the pay gap at Local 48 is $21 an hour.

Electrician career paths lays out where each lane leads after 10 years.

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