How to become a plumber or pipefitter in 2026

Plumbers and pipefitters make a median of $63,800 a year, $30.67 an hour, on the Bureau of Labor Statistics count, about $2,790 above the HVAC technician median. The top tenth reach $108,420, some $13,200 above the HVAC ceiling, and the floor sits at $44,150 against $40,050. The plumbing trade is modestly better paid at every point in the distribution rather than dramatically better paid at one.

A gap that small is smaller than the gap between states within either trade. Illinois pays HVAC technicians a median of $77,410 and Arkansas $48,110, a difference of nearly $30,000 inside one occupation. Someone weighing plumbing against HVAC on pay alone is optimising a variable worth $2,790 while ignoring one worth ten times that.

The quartiles show where the two trades genuinely diverge, which is at the top rather than the middle. A quarter of plumbers earn above $85,110, against $77,060 for HVAC technicians. The trades start in much the same place and the plumbing distribution stretches further, which is consistent with a licensed trade where the credential is worth something to an employer.

Plumbing is not a better trade than HVAC on wages, where the difference is too small to justify retraining. The argument for plumbing is structural: it is licensed in far more states than HVAC, which means a more standardised route in, a credential that means the same thing when you cross a state line, and less of the city-by-city patchwork this site documents state by state.

The argument the other way is that the same licensing is a barrier when you are starting. A trade that requires a licence requires you to earn one before working unsupervised, whereas in much of the country an HVAC technician can be hired and paid on the strength of a certificate and an EPA card. Illinois licenses plumbers and not HVAC technicians; so does Missouri for electrical and not mechanical. The gap is a real one and it cuts both ways depending on whether you are entering or established.

Geographically the two trades reward the same places. San Jose pays plumbers $107,560, Chicago $103,380, Minneapolis $101,630 and Portland $101,010, which is close to the list of metros paying HVAC technicians best. Where one trade is well paid the other usually is, because both are responding to the same construction market and often the same union agreements.