Why journeyman pay runs from $40 to $80 an hour

Journeyman pay runs from about $40 to $80 an hour because six things move the number: the metro, union scale vs open shop, the industry, travel and per diem, specialty skills, and agency bill rates that get passed around as if they were pay. On BLS data (May 2025), the median electrician in Portland, Oregon makes about twice what the median electrician in Orlando does. Metro alone doubles the number before anything else moves it.

01Where the $40 to $80 band comes from

It's what contractors see when they look at the whole country at once.

One national electrical contractor told us the market is "a big band. It varies from, I don't know, $40 to $45 an hour up to like $80 an hour." They weren't wrong. They were looking at numbers from different metros, union and open shop, local and travel, and pay rates mixed in with bill rates. Pull those apart and each piece makes sense.

For the full picture on setting a rate, start with how much to pay a journeyman electrician in 2026. This post is about what moves the number.

021. Metro: the biggest single driver

Where the job is moves the rate more than anything else.

BLS publishes electrician pay by metro in its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Here are eight big markets, May 2025, hourly:

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025. OEWS counts apprentices too and is straight time only, so the 25th percentile is mostly apprentice money.

Two things jump out. The 75th percentile in Phoenix ($37.05) is under the median in Chicago ($49.21). And the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford median is $24.43, so Portland's $50.53 is 2.07 times it (our math). A contractor who works in both kinds of markets will see a "$40 to $80" band without anyone being out of line.

To read your own metro the right way, use the 30-minute check on whether your journeyman rate is competitive.

032. Union scale vs open shop

In union-heavy metros, the inside wireman rate sets the top of the local band.

Sources: the Local 46, Local 11 and Local 340 wage sheets; medians are BLS OEWS, May 2025.

Read that table with care. The BLS medians are from May 2025 and include apprentices and open-shop hands. The union numbers are 2026 wages for journeymen only. And the wage is only part of a union package: Local 46's journey level package totals $114.95 an hour with medical, pension and the rest.

So the wage gap between union scale and the metro median, about $18 to $32 an hour in these three markets, is part real and part apples to oranges. Either way, an open-shop hand in a union town knows what the hall pays.

043. Industry: who signs the check

Electricians who work for government and manufacturers earn more than those who work for electrical contractors.

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Electricians.

That matters when you're hiring for a plant job. The maintenance electrician at the plant may make more than the J-man you're bringing in to build the expansion. Your hands will hear about it.

054. Travel and per diem

Travel jobs post a strong hourly rate plus a daily per diem, and the two get blended into one big number.

We looked at RoadDog Jobs journeyman listings with a per diem in North Dakota and Utah on Oct 19, 2026. Base pay ran from $50 to $65 an hour. Per diem ran from $100 to $190 a day.

Here's how that turns into an "$80 journeyman." Take an example travel job at $55 an hour plus $150 a day, 7 days, on 6-10s:

Divide $4,900 by 60 hours and you get $81.67 an hour. Nobody's base rate is $81.67, but that's how the number gets repeated at the supply house. Compare base to base and per diem to per diem. More on that in what per diem to offer traveling electricians.

Data center work is pushing wages too. In the AGC and NCCER 2026 survey, 49% of firms that worked on a data center project in the past year reported more wage pressure (AGC, Sept 3, 2026). See how to hire electricians when data centers pull every hand.

065. Specific skills

Some skills earn a premium on their own, and union agreements write them down.

• Local 46 pays a cable splicer 10% over journey level ($85.72) and a welder 5% over ($81.83).
• Local 11 pays 5% over journeyman ($70.35) for cable splicing, welding or NETA testing.
• Local 340 pays 110% of journeyman ($59.07) for splicing cable.

Open shops do the same thing less formally. A hand who can terminate medium voltage, troubleshoot VFDs or check out controls is worth more on a plant or data center job than one who only pipes and pulls. Paying that one hand $3 more is cheaper than raising the whole crew $3 to get him.

076. Agency bill rates mistaken for pay

A lot of the $80 numbers floating around are what a staffing agency bills, not what the hand makes.

The same contractor told us an agency billed about $87.50 an hour, plus per diem, for apprentices. Run that bill rate backward. If it's a 30% markup on pay, the hand makes $67.31 ($87.50 / 1.30). At 40%, he makes $62.50. If the agency means 30% to 40% of the bill rate, he makes $52.50 to $61.25. Same invoice, four different "rates," and an apprentice on that job likely makes less than any of them. Ask for the pay rate, not just the bill rate. See bill rate vs pay rate for how to back out the real wage.

08How to set a ceiling without losing the hire

Set a floor, set a ceiling, and write down exactly what the ceiling buys.

On that call, the owner said the "absolute most would be, I want to say, about 58." The PM said they pay "50 to 55." Then the PM gave the rule that makes a ceiling work: "If I'm paying somebody 58, that person better be very experienced and I should just be able to point and say, hey, go do it, get it done."

That's the whole method:

1. Floor: your metro's BLS median or the middle of 10 live ads, whichever is higher.
2. Ceiling: between the 75th and 90th percentile for your metro.
3. What the ceiling buys: a hand who takes the prints, lays out the work and runs it from point A to point B without a babysitter. Reads the drawings, bends and runs pipe, terminates, and can carry two or three guys. Our day-one journeyman checklist spells it out.
4. Check before you pay it. A short practical test or a call with his last foreman tells you if he's a ceiling hand.
5. Give a path, not a no. If he's close but not proven, start him a couple of dollars under the ceiling with a set review at 30 days. Good hands take a path. They walk from a flat no.
6. Pay premiums for skills, not across the board. MV, controls and VFDs get a bump on the hand who has them.

Raising the ceiling is a real cost. On 6-10s, $1 more an hour is $70 a week per man before payroll taxes. On a 10-hand crew for 13 weeks, that's $9,100 (our math). See what a $1 raise really costs before you move it.

If you need hands at the top of your band and want to see who's out there, apply here and we'll see if we can put 5 licensed electricians in front of you in 14 days.

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