Union electrician pay, from the wage sheet
Every number on this site comes from a prevailing-wage record or the local's own wage sheet, and each one carries its source and effective date. There are no estimates from job boards here.
The calculator underneath runs the switch math for someone already earning a salary: the apprentice-year income trough against what you make now, and the year the two lines cross, if they do.
Pay scales by metro
- IBEW Local 595 pay scale (Bay Area) $76.00 base, $126.52 package, effective 2025-08-22
- IBEW Local 103 pay scale (Boston) $66.86 base, $112.61 package, effective 2026-03-01
- IBEW Local 3 pay scale (New York City) $64.00 base, $129.24 package, effective 2026-07-01
- IBEW Local 46 pay scale (Seattle) $76.95 base, $111.96 package, effective 2026-02-02
Across metros
- Electrician apprentice pay by year every ladder, first-year cash, side by side
- Journeyman electrician salary by metro base, fringe and package against the BLS market range
- How long it takes to become an electrician apprenticeship and license timelines by state
- Methodology sources, the verify gate, the honest-math rules
What the switch costs from a desk job
Enter your current salary. The table shows cash wages only, year by year, against staying put. Benefits are listed separately and never enter break-even, and the business-ownership line is a scenario range, so neither can hide the real cash hole.
- Deepest hole
- cumulative cash, by year
- Break-even
- on cash wages against staying put
- Journeyman base
The line items break-even leaves out
| Licensing and exam fees (year 1, counted in break-even) | |
| Benefits against your current coverage (per year; outside break-even); ; | |
| Year | Stay | Switch (cash) | Costs | Difference | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Break-even and the hole ride cash wages plus one-time licensing only. Union rates are prevailing-wage or wage-sheet figures at 2,000 paid hours a year, which is an assumption; actual hours vary. See the methodology page for the per-number audit trail. Methodology.