Are electricians in demand? Openings, new entrants, state growth and pay, 2025 to 2035

Are electricians in demand? BLS projects 72,700 openings a year to 2035

The federal projection is clear on demand: electrician employment grows faster than the average occupation. Most openings, though, come from turnover, not from new jobs, and the newest round trimmed the annual openings figure.

The BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 round, released on 2026-08-27, puts US electrician employment at 821,000 jobs in 2025 and 896,900 in 2035, a gain of 75,900 or 9.2%. All occupations are projected to grow 3.5%. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook rounds this to 9 percent and calls it much faster than the average.

BLS projects 72,700 openings a year on average. Spread evenly, employment growth supplies 7,590 of them (10.4%). Labor force exits, mostly retirements, supply 22,100 (30.4%). Transfers of electricians into other occupations supply 43,100 (59.3%). Replacement needs therefore make up 89.7% of the openings.

Occupational openings (BLS): Projected employment change plus separations. Separations are workers who leave the labor force (exits) or move to a different occupation (transfers). BLS does not count job changes within the occupation, so an electrician moving from one contractor to another is not an opening (BLS separations method).

Electricians leave the occupation less often than the average worker. Their projected total separations rate is 7.6% a year (2.6% exits, 5.0% transfers), against 9.7% for all occupations. A lower rate means fewer openings per job, not weaker demand.

Registered apprenticeship signs up 53.2 new electricians for every 100 projected openings

Department of Labor registration records give the yearly supply figure the shortage debate usually lacks: 38,696 new registered electrician apprentices in FY2024, 92.8% more than in FY2015. Set against 72,700 projected openings, that is 53.2 per 100. Far fewer finish each year, and schools add a second, partly overlapping stream.

DOL RAPIDS records show 38,696 new apprentices in inside, construction and residential electrician titles in FY2024, up 92.8% from 20,075 in FY2015. Part of that rise reflects more states uploading records. Washington and most of Wisconsin register apprentices in state systems; substituting their own 2024 registrations (1,004 in Washington, 749 in Wisconsin) gives 40,151. State counts are in our electrician apprenticeship report; this report uses only the national flow.

Against 72,700 projected openings a year for 2025 to 2035, FY2024 registrations equal 53.2 new apprentices per 100 openings, or 1.88 openings per new apprentice (55.2 per 100 with the two state registries). A registration is a start, not a finished electrician: 13,054 apprentices completed in FY2024, 18.0% of projected openings and 0.59 per projected labor force exit.

Colleges and technical schools in the 50 states and DC awarded 28,770 electrician credentials (CIP 46.0302, first major, all award levels) in 2023-24, according to IPEDS Completions 2023-24, up 122.7% from 12,919 in 2014-15. Some award holders are also registered apprentices, so awards and new apprentices cannot simply be added. On awards alone there are 2.53 openings per award. Our electrician school cost report breaks the awards down by state.

Which states need electricians the most: Colorado, Idaho and Arizona lead projected growth

State projections vary far more than the national figure suggests. Mountain West and Southern states lead on growth, the largest states lead on raw openings, and a handful of Northeastern and Rust Belt states grow slowly.

The latest state round, 2024 to 2034, is compiled by Projections Central from each state's labor market information agency. Colorado leads at 31.0% projected growth, followed by Idaho (29.2%), Arizona (25.6%), Tennessee (22.4%), Wyoming (22.1%) and Utah (21.5%). Alaska (2.1%), New York (3.3%), Maine (3.8%) and Kentucky (3.9%) are lowest. The spread between the fastest and slowest state is 28.9 percentage points.

Thirty-nine of the 51 jurisdictions (50 states and DC) project growth above the national 9.5% for the same period. In raw openings, California (8,650 a year), Texas (8,100), Florida (5,920) and New York (4,020) lead because their workforces are largest. Normalised for size, Colorado has 129.6 annual openings per 1,000 electrician jobs and Idaho 127.2, against 98.9 nationally and 87.9 in Alaska.

State totals do not add to the national figure: the 51 state rows sum to 85,080 annual openings, against 81,000 in the national 2024-34 projection, because each state agency produces its own projections with its own methods and base data. Treat state figures as comparable in direction, not to the last job. For local pay, see electrician salary by state; for the number of electrical contracting firms by state, see electrical contractor counts by state.

Electricians are younger than the workforce: 18.0% are 55 or older

The retirement wave is often given as the core of the shortage. The household survey does not support an aging trade: the share of older electricians fell slightly over ten years while the youngest group grew fastest.

In 2025, 191 thousand of 1,063 thousand employed electricians were 55 or older, or 18.0% (CPS Table 11b, annual averages). In 2015 the figures were 145 thousand of 773 thousand, or 18.8%. Among all employed people, the 55 and older share was 23.2% in 2025 and 22.5% in 2015, so electricians are younger than the average worker and the gap widened.

Workers aged 16 to 24 rose from 92 thousand (11.9%) to 167 thousand (15.7%) of employed electricians. The median electrician age fell from 41.6 years to 39.6 years. The CPS count of employed electricians grew 37.5% over the decade.

Electrician pay after inflation: one survey shows a 14.1% gain, the other a 9.9% drop

A true labor shortage should push real wages up. Two federal surveys give opposite answers for 2015 to 2025, and the gap comes from what each survey measures: overtime, part-time jobs and the share of trainees. Self-employment is not the cause, because both pay measures exclude it.

The household survey (CPS Table 39) shows median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary electricians rising from $888 in 2015 to $1,376 in 2025, a 55.0% nominal gain. Prices rose 35.8% between the annual averages, so the real gain is 14.1%, ahead of the 9.6% real gain for all full-time workers. Electricians earned 1.10 times the all-worker median in 2015 and 1.14 times in 2025.

The employer survey (OEWS May 2025) shows the median annual wage rising from $51,880 in May 2015 to $63,190 in May 2025, a 21.8% nominal gain. Prices rose 35.2% between those months, so the May 2015 median equals $70,131 in May 2025 dollars and the real change is a 9.9% decline. The all-occupations OEWS median rose 4.2% in real terms over the same period.

The two results can both be right. CPS Table 39 comes from a household survey and reports usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, including overtime, commissions and tips; it excludes both incorporated and unincorporated self-employed people (BLS CPS definitions). OEWS comes from a survey of employers, covers full-time and part-time wage and salary jobs, excludes the self-employed, and records straight-time pay without overtime; its annual wage assumes 2,080 hours a year (OEWS FAQ; OEWS technical notes).

Apprentices are classified with the occupation they train for (SOC 2018 User Guide), so they sit inside both electrician figures. OEWS electrician employment grew 27.9% over the decade while the workforce got younger, and a larger share of trainees pulls the median down even if each worker's pay rises. Neither table splits the median by union status, so union coverage does not separate the two results. The deflators differ too: CPI-U May to May for OEWS (35.2%) and annual averages for CPS (35.8%). BLS does not encourage using OEWS for time-series analysis, because its estimates pool six semiannual panels collected over three years.

Data centers, grid work and solar drive the projected growth

BLS attributes the faster growth mainly to electricity demand from data centers and to grid upgrades. Federal energy data confirm rising load, while EV-related demand has slowed.

In its list of factors behind the projection, BLS names four industries where it expects electricians' share of employment to rise, and all four entries cite rising demand mainly from a growing number of data centers; three of the four also cite the need to upgrade and expand the electrical grid (BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.12). The BLS National Employment Matrix places 62,200 of the 75,900 projected new jobs, or 81.9%, in electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors (NAICS 238210), which grows 11.4%.

• Data centers: US data centers used 176 TWh in 2023, about 4.4% of US electricity, up from 58 TWh in 2014, and are projected to reach 325 to 580 TWh, or 6.7 to 12% of US electricity, by 2028 (DOE summary of the LBNL data center report, December 20, 2024).
• Grid work: BLS projects electricians in power and communication line construction (NAICS 237130) to grow 18.0% and those in electric power generation, transmission and distribution to grow 15.6%; utilities are the fastest-growing major sector at 9.8% (BLS news release). PJM, ERCOT and SWPP set peak load records of 162.6 GW, 91.1 GW and 58.0 GW in summer 2026 (EIA). Equipment supply is covered in our transformer shortage report.
• Solar: US small-scale solar generation rose from 18,812 GWh to 92,979 GWh over the decade to 2025 (EIA). Electricians in solar power generation are projected to rise from 600 to 1,400 jobs, a 154.7% gain on a small base.
• EV charging: light-duty EVs used nearly 14 billion kWh in the first half of 2026, but growth slowed to 8% over the previous half-year after new EV sales fell 19% when federal tax credits ended (EIA). Charger counts are in our EV charging stations by state report.

Current hiring is cooler than the long-term projection. The construction job openings rate in BLS JOLTS averaged 2.8% in 2025, down 2.1 percentage points from 4.9% in 2022, and was 2.9% in August 2026 (preliminary). JOLTS covers the whole construction industry, not electricians alone, but it is a monthly federal measure of unfilled jobs in the sector.

Is there a shortage of electricians? What the numbers support

The data support strong and above-average demand. They support a national shortage only in a narrow sense: projected openings exceed documented registered apprentice starts and school output, but the age profile, real-wage data and current openings rate do not show an acute economy-wide gap.

• Supports demand: 9.2% projected growth against 3.5% for all occupations, and 72,700 openings a year (BLS 2025-35).
• Supports a training gap: 38,696 new registered apprentices in FY2024 (53.2 per 100 openings) and 13,054 completers, against 72,700 openings a year.
• Weakens the retirement story: 18.0% of electricians are 55 or older, below 23.2% of all workers, and the 16 to 24 share rose to 15.7%.
• Mixed on pay: real full-time weekly earnings up 14.1% (CPS), real OEWS median down 9.9%.
• Cooling in the short run: construction job openings rate 2.8% in 2025 against 4.9% in 2022; projected annual openings revised down 10.2%.
• Uneven by place: 31.0% projected growth in Colorado against 2.1% in Alaska.

Figures that roughly 10,000 electricians retire or change careers each year while about 7,000 enter, as reported by CNBC in 2024, do not match federal series: BLS projects 22,100 labor force exits a year, registered programs signed up 38,696 new electrician apprentices in FY2024, and schools award 28,770 credentials. The federal and industry counts measure different things, and neither publishes a full count of new entrants. Readers planning a career can start with how to become an electrician.

How the benchmark is built

Get the calculations (CSV)

Where contractors differ

1. BLS projects 72,700 electrician openings per year on average from 2025 to 2035 in the United States.^[1][3]
2. US electrician employment is projected to grow 9.2% from 2025 to 2035, from 821,000 to 896,900 jobs, against 3.5% for all occupations.^[1]
3. 89.7% of projected annual electrician openings for 2025 to 2035 replace workers who leave: 43,100 transfers to other occupations and 22,100 labor force exits.^[1]
4. Electricians have a projected total separations rate of 7.6% a year for 2025 to 2035, below the 9.7% rate for all occupations.^[1]
5. US schools in the 50 states and DC awarded 28,770 electrician (CIP 46.0302) credentials in 2023-24, up from 12,919 in 2014-15.^[15][16]
6. Registered programs signed up 38,696 new US electrician apprentices in FY2024, 53.2 for every 100 projected annual openings for 2025 to 2035; 13,054 apprentices completed in FY2024.^[26][1]
7. Colorado (31.0%), Idaho (29.2%) and Arizona (25.6%) have the fastest projected electrician job growth for 2024 to 2034; Alaska (2.1%) and New York (3.3%) the slowest.^[7]
8. California (8,650) and Texas (8,100) have the most projected annual electrician openings among states for 2024 to 2034.^[7]
9. 18.0% of employed US electricians were 55 or older in 2025, down from 18.8% in 2015, while 23.2% of all employed people were 55 or older in 2025.^[8][9]
10. The median age of US electricians fell from 41.6 years in 2015 to 39.6 years in 2025.^[8][9]
11. Real CPS median weekly earnings of full-time US electricians rose 14.1% from 2015 to 2025, above the 9.6% gain for all full-time workers.^[10][11][14]
12. The OEWS median annual wage for US electricians was $63,190 in May 2025, 9.9% below the May 2015 median of $51,880 expressed in May 2025 dollars ($70,131).^[12][13][14]
13. Electrical contractors (NAICS 238210) account for 62,200 of the 75,900 electrician jobs BLS projects to add from 2025 to 2035.^[4]
14. The US construction job openings rate averaged 2.8% in 2025, down from 4.9% in 2022.^[23]

In short

• BLS projects 72,700 electrician openings a year from 2025 to 2035, with employment rising 9.2% from 821,000 to 896,900 jobs.
• Only 7,590 of those annual openings come from new jobs; 22,100 come from workers leaving the labor force and 43,100 from workers moving to other occupations.
• Registered programs signed up 38,696 new electrician apprentices in FY2024, 53.2 for every 100 projected openings, and 13,054 completed; schools awarded 28,770 electrician credentials in 2023-24, up 122.7% from 2014-15.
• Projected growth for 2024 to 2034 ranges from 31.0% in Colorado to 2.1% in Alaska, and 39 of 51 jurisdictions exceed the national 9.5%.
• The workforce is younger than the narrative suggests: 18.0% of electricians were 55 or older in 2025, against 23.2% of all workers, and the 16 to 24 share rose to 15.7%.
• After inflation, CPS weekly earnings for full-time electricians rose 14.1% from 2015 to 2025, while the OEWS median annual wage fell 9.9%; the surveys differ on overtime, part-time jobs and the share of trainees, not on self-employment, which both exclude.
• BLS ties the growth to data centers and grid upgrades: 62,200 of the 75,900 projected new electrician jobs are in electrical contracting.

Common questions

Keep reading

• How to become an electrician
• Electrician salary by state
• Highest paying trade jobs
• EV Charger Installation Cost at Home: Published Level 2 Figures, the Electrician's Share and Rebates by State, 2026
• EV Charging Stations by State: Public Ports, Ports per EV and Growth, 2023 to 2026
• Female Electricians in the US: Share, Count by State, Apprentices and Pay
• All electrical contractor data

How we built this report

Selection: we used federal primary sources for every headline figure: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 (occupation.xlsx Tables 1.2, 1.10 and 1.12, the National Employment Matrix and the AI exposure supplement), state long-term projections 2024-34 from Projections Central, CPS annual averages Tables 11b and 39 for 2015 and 2025, OEWS national files for May 2015 and May 2025, CPI-U series CUUR0000SA0, IPEDS completions files C2024_A and C2015_A with directory files HD2024 and HD2015, DOL RAPIDS registered apprentice records (FY2015 to FY2024 new registrations and completers), Washington L&I and Wisconsin DWD registries, DOL Office of Apprenticeship publications, DOE and EIA energy data, and BLS JOLTS. Industry and press figures appear only for comparison and are labelled Tier 3.

Inclusion and exclusion: electricians are SOC 47-2111. School completions are CIP 46.0302 (Electrician), first major, all award levels, at institutions in the 50 states and DC (territories excluded). State rankings use all 50 states and DC. Claims we could not verify from an opened source, including industry retirement counts and blocked pages, are listed in excluded.md.

Conflicting numbers: the BLS 2025-35 national projection supersedes the 2024-34 figures still quoted elsewhere; we show both and label the revision. Employment totals differ by survey (821,000 in the projections, 757,220 in OEWS, 1,063 thousand in CPS) because each counts different workers; we use each only for its own measure. For pay we report both CPS and OEWS and explain why they diverge rather than choosing one.

Derived metrics: growth openings are the 10-year employment change divided by 10; shares divide each component by 72,700. New apprentices per 100 openings divide FY2024 RAPIDS registrations by 72,700; openings per award divide 72,700 by 28,770. State openings per 1,000 jobs divide annual openings by 2024 employment. Age shares sum the 55-64 and 65 and over groups and divide by the total. Real changes deflate the 2015 value with the CPI-U ratio (May to May for OEWS, annual averages for CPS). Every formula and input row is in derived_metrics.csv and scripts/.

Limitations: projections are not forecasts of hiring, and BLS does not publish transfers into an occupation, so no source gives a complete count of new entrants. FY2024 is the latest complete year of RAPIDS registrations in a downloadable DOL file; registrations are starts, and many electricians train outside registered programs. CPS 2025 averages exclude October 2025. BLS does not encourage OEWS time comparisons, and the two wage surveys differ on overtime, part-time jobs and deflator month. JOLTS covers the whole construction industry. Nothing here is career, legal or financial advice.

Last updated 2026-11-05. We will refresh the report when BLS releases the 2026-36 projections and when Projections Central posts a newer state round.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources by tier

Tier 1: primary and official sources (31)

• [1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections 2025-35, occupation.xlsx (Tables 1.2, 1.10, 1.12). 2025-35. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment Projections 2025-2035 news release (USDL-26-1422). 2025-35, released 2026-08-27. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: Electricians. 2025-35; May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Employment Matrix: 47-2111 Electricians by industry. 2025 and projected 2035. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. AI exposure categories and 2025-35 employment projections. 2025-35. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational separations methodology. Method. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] Projections Managing Partnership (Projections Central). Long-term occupational projections, Electricians (47-2111), all states. 2024-34. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS 2025 annual averages, Table 11b: employed people by detailed occupation and age. 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS 2015 annual averages, Table 11b: employed persons by detailed occupation and age. 2015. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS 2025 annual averages, Table 39: median weekly earnings by detailed occupation. 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS 2015 annual averages, Table 39: median weekly earnings by detailed occupation. 2015. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 national estimates. May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment Statistics, May 2015 national estimates. May 2015. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, series CUUR0000SA0. 2015 and 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS Completions 2023-24 (C2024_A) and directory HD2024. July 2023 to June 2024. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] National Center for Education Statistics. IPEDS Completions 2014-15 (C2015_A, revised) and directory HD2015. July 2014 to June 2015. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Apprenticeship. Registered Apprenticeship National Results, Fiscal Year 2021 (Internet Archive copy, 2026-10-12). FY2021. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [18] U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Apprenticeship. Registered Apprenticeship industry fact sheet: Construction (March 2026). FY2021 to FY2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [19] U.S. Department of Energy. DOE Releases New Report Evaluating Increase in Electricity Demand from Data Centers. 2014 to 2028. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [20] U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. small-scale solar generation has quadrupled in the last decade. Decade to 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [21] U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. electricity use for electric vehicles increasing at a slower pace in 2026. 1H 2023 to 1H 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [22] U.S. Energy Information Administration. PJM, ERCOT, and SWPP all set peak load records this summer. Summer 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [23] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, job openings rates. 2015 to August 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [24] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. OEWS frequently asked questions. Method. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [26] U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Apprenticeship (hosted on the Colorado Information Marketplace). CDLE – apprenticeship.gov – Apprentices by Location (March 2025), DOL RAPIDS records (dataset bgbq-h7em), grouped query. FY2015 to FY2024 complete. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [27] Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. L&I Apprenticeship Apprentice Details (dataset mcr6-ujqw), registrations by year. Records through 2026-10-01. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [28] Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. Apprenticeship Registrants by Trade, 2014 to 2026 (refresh date 10/1/2026). Calendar years 2014 to 2026. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [29] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPS concepts and definitions: earnings (Internet Archive copy, 2026-10-30; live page HTTP 403). Page as archived 2026-10-30. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [30] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. OEWS technical notes (Internet Archive copy, 2026-10-27; live page HTTP 403). Page as archived 2026-10-27. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [31] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Standard Occupational Classification Manual 2018, User Guide (Internet Archive copy, 2026-10-17). 2018 SOC. Accessed 2026-11-05.
• [32] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. OEWS frequently asked questions (Internet Archive copy, 2026-10-27). Page as archived 2026-10-27. Accessed 2026-11-05.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (1)

• [25] CNBC. America's demand for skilled electricians is entering a boom cycle. 2024 reporting. Accessed 2026-11-02.