OEWS Ranked
Highest Paying Trade Jobs
Trade occupations — electricians, welders, mechanics, construction trades — combine strong mid-career pay with apprenticeship pathways that often skip a four-year degree. Figures below are OEWS employer-reported wages for the United States.
National ranking
Click any occupation for state-level salaries, percentiles, and real (cost-of-living adjusted) pay.
Methodology
Filtered to Construction & Extraction (SOC 47), Installation/Maintenance/Repair (49), Production (51), and Transportation (53) major groups with mean wage ≥ $55,000, ranked by national mean wage.
Full documentation: Wage Atlas methodology and data sources.