2026 Insulation Salary Guide
National wage benchmarks for mechanical insulators and building envelope installers, sourced directly from BLS - with every role that lacks a dedicated wage figure named and explained instead of filled with a guess.
What's inside
- National median wage and 2024–34 growth outlook for both BLS-tracked insulation occupations
- Every role without a dedicated BLS wage figure named and explained - never filled with an invented number
- A breakdown of why mechanical insulation and building-envelope insulation are tracked, and paid, differently
- Total-compensation factors to weigh alongside base wage when benchmarking an offer
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Download 2026 Insulation Salary GuideWhat the public wage data already says about insulation pay.
The guide is built from our own placement records. This is the other half - what the federal government published for Insulation Workers, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall in May 2025, free, before any of our data is added to it.
There is no federal occupation code for insulation on its own. Insulation Workers, Floor, Ceiling, and Wall is the closest published occupation, and it is what every figure in this section describes.
The eight metros that pay it best.
| Metro | Median | vs national | Employed | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Omaha, NE | $81,880 | +67% | — | — |
| Columbus, OH | $80,000 | +63% | 380 | 1.19× |
| San Francisco, CA | $76,170 | +55% | 370 | 0.55× |
| Seattle, WA | $71,980 | +47% | 1,250 | 2.09× |
| Des Moines, IA | $70,410 | +43% | 200 | 1.70× |
| Baltimore, MD | $63,200 | +29% | 550 | 1.42× |
| New York, NY | $61,730 | +26% | 1,500 | 0.55× |
| Spokane, WA | $61,690 | +26% | 150 | 2.09× |
Concentration is the location quotient: 1.00× is the national rate, 1.40× means the metro has 40% more of these workers per job than the country as a whole.
The same job title pays $81,880 in Omaha and $37,440 in Winston-Salem - $44,440 a year apart. That is across the 63 of our 100 metros where BLS publishes a median for it; in the other 37 the local sample is too small to publish, which is its own signal about how many of these people are around.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Figures are annual, for all employers, not only commercial contractors.
