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COMMERCIAL ELECTRICAL - ROLE PROFILE

Journeyman Electrician (Commercial)

We place this role between $58,000 and $88,000 a year at mid experience, before overtime, bonus and on-call.

What this role pays.

That band is mid experience, built from our own engagement history. Experience and region move it - the salary calculator applies both.

The federal occupation this role reports under is Electricians (SOC 47-2111), May 2025. Nationally it reports a median of $63,190 , with the middle of the market between $42,640 and $108,510. BLS counts this job inside that occupation rather than publishing it separately, so the figures cover a slightly wider group than this exact title.

Where it pays most.

Electricians across the metros we cover, May 2025. BLS publishes a median for 112 of them and withholds the rest, where the local sample was too small to be reliable.

Highest-paying metros - Electricians
Metro Median Employed there
Portland $105,090 7,340
Chicago $102,350 17,720
Seattle $101,780 9,750
urban honolulu hi $100,270 2,290
San Francisco $92,830 9,060
San Jose $91,030 5,480
Detroit $81,990 11,210
Minneapolis $81,890 8,810
McAllen $46,930 670
El Paso $48,140 1,380
Little Rock $48,200 1,870

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. The last three rows are the lowest-paying metros in the same set. Headcount is metro-wide across every industry, not this trade alone.

Journeyman Electrician (Commercial) vs Master Electrician.

Both are licensed; the master's licence is the one that carries the permit. The journeyman is the seat that gets filled in volume on commercial work, and the one our own closed searches in this trade are concentrated in. The screen is the state licence plus whatever the site demands - typically OSHA 30, and NFPA 70E for anything near energised equipment. BLS counts apprentices, journeymen and masters as one occupation, which is why the percentile spread below is as wide as it is.

Master Electrician: what it pays and what the search takes

Credentials that move an offer.

  • State License
  • OSHA 30

Licensing is a state question, not a national one. The Commercial Electrical hiring page carries the state-by-state position, and every market page names the authority for that state.

What the search actually takes.

Across 11 closed commercial electrical searches in 2026 year to date, our median was 30 days from first contact with the candidate to hire. That is not a time-to-fill benchmark - our clock starts when we reach the candidate, not when the requisition opened. The full distribution is in the Hiring Index.

Searches we have closed in this seat

4 of them were for this exact seat rather than the trade in general. Each is written up in full on our placements page: what the opening was, what made it hard, and what the person we placed brought.

Keep reading.

Other Commercial Electrical roles we recruit

All 56 roles we recruit - every trade, every seat.

Hiring a Journeyman Electrician (Commercial)? Schedule a call.

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