JobMarketHealth

Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters

SOC 47-2152 · 47-0000 · Reference month July 2026

In short

As of July 2026, Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters have a Job Market Health score of 52/100, classified as Balanced. This score is our derived indicator, not a government statistic.

The published median annual wage is $63,800.

BLS projects about 42,000 average annual openings and +6.8% employment growth over the 2025-2035 projection period. Projected openings are a modeled yearly average, not jobs open today.

How the score is builtData sources

Job Market Health score

52/ 100
Balanced

Stable

Confidence
High
Restated score
52
Methodology
v1.0
Geography
US
  • At least 90% of required inputs and occupation-industry mapping are covered.

Job Market Health scores are derived indicators based on published data, informational only, not a forecast or guarantee.

$63,800Median annual wageOEWS May 2025
42,000Projected annual openingsBLS Employment Projections 2025-2035
+6.8%Projected growth2025–2035
465,840Total employmentOEWS May 2025

Local market context

QCEW industry conditions for this occupation’s employment mix

Choose a state to see how the industries that employ this occupation are performing locally.

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How to read this section

QCEW measures employment and wages by industry, not by occupation. We weight those industry conditions using the published industry mix for this occupation. These figures describe the industries that employ this occupation; they are not direct counts of people working in the occupation or jobs currently open.

Source: BLS QCEW. This section is not part of the national 0 to 100 Job Market Health score. See the methodology.

How to read this page

The score is a national composite from 0 to 100 that weights near term hiring demand at 50 percent, the occupation's own employment fundamentals at 30 percent, and long-term outlook at 20 percent. Wages and occupation profile details are context shown alongside it, not score inputs. See the full methodology.

Median annual wage and metro employment come from BLS OEWS, which is annual. Projected annual openings and projected growth come from BLS Employment Projections and describe the published projection horizon, so they are not a count of jobs open today. Values shown as not published are suppressed by the source rather than filled in here.

Job Market Health trend

Published composite score by reference month

Live market data connection pending

We only show figures published by our government data sources. Nothing is estimated or filled in, so this panel stays empty until the connection is live.

Score components

The three published inputs behind the composite

Current demand42
Occupation fundamentals58
Long-term outlook70

Largest metro markets by employment

OEWS metro employment, where the jobs are, not a quality ranking

Largest metro markets by employment
Metro areaEmploymentJobs per 1,000Median annual wage
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ21,0402.22$78,610
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA15,6902.50$71,110
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN12,7502.83$103,380
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX11,9802.96$61,250
Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX10,9803.34$61,300
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV9,4203.00$71,860
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ9,2703.90$63,750
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH9,2003.40$96,760
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD7,1502.47$74,860
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI6,7303.45$101,630

Education & training

Typical entry requirements · BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035

Typical education
High school diploma or equivalent
Work experience
None
On-the-job training
Apprenticeship
Projected employment
545,200 jobs

Top skills

Occupation profile · O*NET 31.0 Database

Live market data connection pending

We only show figures published by our government data sources. Nothing is estimated or filled in, so this panel stays empty until the connection is live.

Sources & releases

Every figure above traces to a published release

Wages
OEWS May 2025 · released May 1, 2025 · retrieved Sep 17, 2026
Projections
BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035 · released Sep 1, 2025 · retrieved Sep 17, 2026
Occupation profile
O*NET 31.0 Database · retrieved Sep 13, 2026
Score recalculated
Sep 17, 2026
First published
Sep 17, 2026
Data generated
Sep 17, 2026

Values marked “Not published” are suppressed or not published by the source. We leave them blank rather than estimating them.

Keep going

Learn how to judge a market from these numbers in how to tell if a job market is healthy, or why projected growth and annual openings often disagree in projected growth vs projected annual openings. Coverage, revisions and limits are explained on about the data.

The datasets behind these figures, and what each one can and cannot show, are set out on data sources.