Which State Pays Electricians the Most in 2026?

Illinois pays electricians more than any other state. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) release for electricians (SOC 47-2111) puts the mean annual wage for Illinois electricians near $83,600, ahead of Alaska, Hawaii, New York, and Oregon. Nationally, roughly 700,000 electricians earn a median annual wage of about $62,000, and BLS Employment Projections call for around 11 percent employment growth through 2033, faster than the average occupation.

If you are asking which state pays electricians the most because you are weighing a move, read the mean and median numbers carefully. Means skew high because high earners pull the average up, and the highest-paying states also carry the highest costs of doing business. For contractors and shop owners, the more useful question is what the wage floor does to your bid prices and margins. That is what the rest of this article covers.

Top 10 Highest-Paying States for Electricians in 2026

Based on the most recent BLS OEWS survey, these states pay the highest mean wages to electricians:

Rank	State	Mean Annual Wage	Mean Hourly	Market Context
1	Illinois	$83,600	$40.19	Heavy IBEW presence in Chicago, strong commercial and data center work
2	Alaska	$82,100	$39.47	Remote and industrial jobs, thin labor pool
3	Hawaii	$81,700	$39.28	Highest cost of living in the US
4	New York	$79,400	$38.17	Licensing handled locally, including New York City's own master electrician license
5	Oregon	$78,200	$37.60	State prevailing wage rules on public work
6	New Jersey	$77,800	$37.40	Dense commercial market, high overhead
7	California	$77,500	$37.26	C-10 contractor licensing, high workers' comp costs
8	Washington	$77,100	$37.07	No state income tax, heavy tech and data center construction
9	Massachusetts	$75,900	$36.49	2023 NEC adopted with state amendments
10	Connecticut	$74,700	$35.91	Tight supply of licensed electricians

The District of Columbia would rank near the top of this list, though it is not a state.

Metro numbers run well above state averages. Mean wages for electricians top $100,000 in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro and sit near $90,000 in the San Francisco, New York, and Chicago metros.

Union membership explains part of the spread. About one in three electricians belongs to a union, and BLS union membership data consistently shows union construction workers earning roughly 20 to 30 percent more per week than non-union peers in the same markets.

Cost of living matters as much as the wage line. Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities put Hawaii's overall costs roughly 15 percent above the national average and California about 10 percent above, while Illinois sits slightly below average. An $80,000 year in Springfield buys more than an $80,000 year in Honolulu.

Hourly vs Salary: What Electricians Actually Take Home

Most electricians are paid hourly, and the Fair Labor Standards Act requires time-and-a-half beyond 40 hours a week for non-exempt workers. Salaried arrangements exist mostly at larger commercial and industrial shops.

By role, the 2026 market looks like this:

Journeymen earn roughly $22 to $28 an hour in low-cost southern states and $38 to $48 in the top-paying metros.
Master electricians typically add $5 to $15 an hour over journeyman scale, and foremen above that.
Residential service techs on flat-rate pay can out-earn hourly peers when the price book is built correctly.
Shop owners earn on margin per job, so their income depends on estimating and pricing discipline more than any wage scale.

Taxes swing take-home pay significantly between states. A single filer earning $80,000 lands in the 22 percent federal bracket with 7.65 percent FICA off the top everywhere. From there, nine states levy no income tax on wages, including Alaska, Texas, Washington, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and South Dakota. Illinois takes a flat 4.95 percent, and Hawaii's top marginal rate reaches 11 percent. The same gross pay nets meaningfully more in Anchorage than in Honolulu.

Solo operators face a different math problem. Self-employment tax runs 15.3 percent, a general liability policy for a one-person shop typically costs $600 to $2,000 a year, and several states let owner-only businesses skip workers' comp until the first hire, at which point it becomes mandatory. A solo electrician billing $85 an hour and collecting on every invoice can out-earn a $95,000 W-2 position once those costs are covered, but only with disciplined pricing and follow-up.

Why High Pay States Can Still Be Tough Markets for Electrical Contractors

High average wages mean a high floor under your labor costs. A $38-an-hour journeyman really costs the shop $58 to $65 an hour once you add payroll taxes, workers' comp under electrical wiring class code 5190 (often $3 to $7 per $100 of payroll, at the high end in California and New York), health coverage, truck payment, and tools. Your competitor across town carries the same burden, which is why bid prices climb but margins often do not.

Three other forces squeeze margins in high-wage states:

Union density and prevailing wage. Federal Davis-Bacon rules apply to covered federally funded construction contracts above $35,000, a threshold raised from $2,000 in the 2023 rule update. States like New York and Oregon add their own prevailing wage requirements on public work. Compliant shops pay scale plus fringes and carry the paperwork to prove it.
Licensing friction. California requires a C-10 electrical contractor license through the CSLB, which demands four years of journey-level experience plus a state exam. Illinois has no statewide electrician license; Chicago, Cook County suburbs, and other municipalities each issue their own. New York leaves licensing to local jurisdictions. Growing across a state line usually means starting the licensing process over, with limited reciprocity.
Competitive bidding. Homeowners routinely collect three or more bids for residential work, and time-and-materials quotes invite a race to the bottom. Material costs are roughly national, so when the labor floor is high and customers cap the price, the difference comes out of your margin.

This is why electrician salary by state data tells only half the story. The other half is how efficiently a shop converts high labor costs into collected revenue.

How Solo Electricians and Small Shops Can Raise Rates Without Losing Work

Raising rates is a systems problem, and the shops that solve it follow the same sequence:

Price from your fully burdened cost per hour. For most shops this runs 40 to 60 percent above base wage once taxes, insurance, truck, and overhead are counted. Bidding from the take-home wage guarantees losses on hard jobs.
Move residential service to flat-rate pricing. A 200-amp panel upgrade typically bills $2,500 to $4,500 installed, and a Level 2 EV charger installation runs $450 to $1,200 depending on circuit run length and panel capacity. Fixed prices sell the outcome and end hourly-rate negotiations.
Set a minimum service call fee. Most markets support $89 to $149 just to roll a truck. Without it, small jobs consume hours that flat-rate calls would pay for.
Chase the growth work. EV charger installs, standby generators, service upgrades, and whole-house surge protection carry better margins than code-repair callbacks, and demand keeps climbing.
Track your close rate. If you win more than 75 percent of competitive bids, your pricing sits below market. Losing some bids is the sign of pricing at full value.
Follow up on every estimate. Estimates that never receive a second contact rarely close on their own. A short structured follow-up sequence recovers jobs that would otherwise die in a homeowner's inbox.
Raise new-customer rates first. Grandfather repeat customers for 90 days, then bring them to the new price book with notice.

Where AceWatt Fits: Run a Higher-Margin Electrical Business in Any State

AceWatt is field service management for electricians, built so a solo operator or a five-crew shop earns more from the same volume of work:

AI Estimating turns job walk notes and photos into priced bids using local labor rates and material costs, and it catches the items that sink margins, like forgotten permit and inspection fees, undercounted AFCI and GFCI devices, and missing bonding for subpanel feeds. Faster bids also mean you quote more of the leads you already have.
Automated Follow-Up keeps every estimate alive with scheduled texts and emails, converting the estimates that used to close for whoever called back first.
Crew Scheduling and Dispatching cuts windshield time. A two-tech shop burning four wasted drive hours per tech each week at a $55 burdened rate loses $22,880 a year.
Job Tracking shows where every job stands, including permit and inspection stages, so billable work never stalls unanswered on a whiteboard.
Invoicing and Payment Tracking lets you invoice the day a job closes and collect 30 to 50 percent deposits on materials-heavy work like panel upgrades and generator installs, with aging visible at a glance.
QuickBooks Accounting Sync pushes jobs, invoices, and payments straight into your books, so you can see true profitability by job type, customer, and crew.
AI Voice and Job Walk Documentation records walkthroughs and generates structured notes, giving you dated evidence of site conditions when a change order gets disputed.
AI-powered CRM keeps the pipeline organized by job type, so you can see how much service, remodel, and EV charger revenue is actually in play this month.

FAQ: Electrician Pay, Licensing, and Business Growth in 2026

Which state pays electricians the most in 2026? Illinois, with a mean annual wage near $83,600 per the latest BLS OEWS data, followed by Alaska and Hawaii. Means skew high, so journeymen comparing offers should also check metro-level medians and local cost of living.

What is the average electrician hourly rate in 2026? The national median sits around $30 an hour. Journeyman rates range from roughly $22 in low-cost states to the high $40s in top metros, with masters and foremen above that.

Do union electricians earn more? Generally yes. BLS union membership data consistently shows union construction workers earning roughly 20 to 30 percent more per week than non-union peers, plus pension and health benefits, though the premium depends on union market share in the local area.

Can I use my electrical license in another state? Rarely. California, Texas, and Alaska run statewide licensing (the CSLB C-10, the TDLR, and the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development respectively), Illinois and New York license at the municipal level, and only a handful of states maintain reciprocity agreements, mostly with neighbors. Plan on a new application and exam for most moves.

How can a small electrical shop increase revenue without adding crews? Flat-rate pricing on residential service, estimating from fully burdened costs, following up on every estimate, invoicing at job close with deposits, and cutting windshield time. That is the exact workflow AceWatt automates. Request a demo and get your local labor rates and price book loaded so your next round of bids reflects what the work actually costs.

Which State Pays Electricians the Most? 2026 Salary Data