Do Licensed Trades Pay More? BLS Wages Compared With State Exam Requirements
By Gabriel Giner, Editor · Published
Not in any consistent way. We compared Bureau of Labor Statistics median wages for 11 trades in states that require a state licensing exam with states that do not. In 6 trades, workers in exam states earned slightly more relative to their state's pay level; in 5, they earned slightly less. The median gap was 2.1 percentage points in either direction. A state's overall wage level had a much larger effect, with about 43 points separating the highest- and lowest-paying states.
That does not mean a license has no value to the person who holds it. Licensing mainly regulates the contracting business, and the federal wage survey does not count business owners. This article explains the comparison, the results, and the limits of the data.
How we compared wages and licensing
We used two datasets. Wages come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, May 2025 release. It reports the median annual wage for each occupation in each state. Licensing comes from our state-and-trade guides, each of which records whether the state requires an examination for that trade. We split each trade's jurisdictions into two groups: those whose guide records a required state exam and those that record no statewide exam. Pathway-dependent and unresolved records were excluded so that the two groups are clearly different.
A raw comparison would mostly measure geography. Wages in Massachusetts are higher than in Mississippi for nearly every occupation, whatever the licensing rules. To reduce that effect, we calculated a state pay level: the median, across all 16 BLS occupations mapped on this site, of the state's wage divided by the national wage. We then divided each trade's state wage by that pay level. The adjusted figure shows whether a trade pays more or less than expected in that state. We compared a trade only when each group had at least 5 jurisdictions with published BLS data.
What the comparison shows
Each figure in the table below is the median across the group's jurisdictions, expressed as a percentage above or below the national median for the occupation. The first number in each cell is for states with a required exam, and the second is for states with no statewide exam. The last column shows the adjusted gap in percentage points. A positive number means exam states pay relatively more.
| Trade | States (exam / no exam) | Raw wage vs. national | Adjusted for state pay level | Adjusted gap (points) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Contractor | 14 / 24 | +2.6% / −6.7% | +0.1% / −6.7% | +6.8 |
| Carpentry | 14 / 29 | +3.4% / −2.0% | −0.3% / −4.8% | +4.5 |
| Home Inspector | 16 / 15 | −5.4% / −4.9% | −3.2% / −4.9% | +1.7 |
| Low-Voltage | 27 / 9 | −0.6% / +1.8% | +0.5% / −0.7% | +1.2 |
| Roofing | 15 / 19 | −11.6% / −12.2% | −4.9% / −6.0% | +1.1 |
| Solar | 13 / 6 | −4.9% / −7.6% | −4.6% / −4.8% | +0.2 |
| Fire Sprinkler | 26 / 7 | −1.7% / +2.2% | 0.0% / +1.3% | −1.3 |
| Concrete | 6 / 20 | −2.8% / +4.6% | −4.6% / −2.5% | −2.1 |
| Painting | 15 / 28 | −2.1% / +1.2% | +0.4% / +2.8% | −2.4 |
| Masonry | 16 / 25 | −0.9% / +7.1% | −1.0% / +3.1% | −4.1 |
| Landscaping | 35 / 5 | +0.6% / −0.6% | +0.3% / +6.0% | −5.7 |
9 of the 11 adjusted gaps are within five points. Several also become smaller after adjustment, which suggests that part of the raw difference reflects where exam states are located. The largest gap is for general contractor work. BLS has no general-contractor occupation, so the figure uses construction managers, whose median in exam states was 0.1 percent above the expected level, compared with 6.7 percent below in states without an exam. Masonry shows the opposite result: brickmasons earned relatively more in states that do not test the trade (+3.1%) than in states that do (−1.0%). With this few states per group, a gap of a few points could result from one or two large states. These differences are too small and too mixed to support the claim that testing raises pay.
Some trades could not be compared because almost every state is on one side. They are electrician (44 with an exam, 0 without), plumber (35 with an exam, 0 without), HVAC (24 with an exam, 4 without), pest control (49 with an exam, 0 without), handyman (4 with an exam, 41 without), and septic contractor (25 with an exam, 1 without). Electricians, plumbers, and pest-control applicators are tested nearly everywhere, while handyman work is rarely tested. These trades therefore have no meaningful comparison group.
Where you work matters more than whether you were tested
The state pay level is the clearest pattern in the data. In the highest-paying states, Massachusetts (+24%), Washington (+23%), Alaska (+23%), New Jersey (+20%), and Illinois (+19%), the typical trade occupation in our dataset earns well above the national median. In the lowest-paying states, Mississippi (−19%), Arkansas (−19%), West Virginia (−17%), Alabama (−15%), and Oklahoma (−14%), it earns well below it. The difference between the top and bottom states is about 43 percentage points, many times larger than any licensing gap in the table above. Costs of living, union coverage, construction demand, and the mix of residential and commercial work all differ between those states. Our dataset cannot separate those causes, but together they outweigh any effect of a state exam.
Each trade page on this site lists BLS medians by state, and each state guide shows the local wage figure next to the licensing requirements. Use those figures to compare markets, but do not treat a state's licensing rules as a measure of its pay.
What this data cannot tell you
- Business owners are excluded. BLS states that the survey does not cover the self-employed or owners and partners in unincorporated firms. In many trades, the license belongs to the business or its qualifying individual, so the people most directly affected by licensing are often missing from the wage data. The numbers describe employees, not contractors' profits.
- Occupations do not match trades exactly. BLS has no general-contractor, solar-contractor, or home-inspector category that matches a license. We use the closest occupation and disclose the mapping on each trade page. Construction managers, for example, include salaried managers who may never hold a license.
- An exam is a rough measure of licensing strictness. Two states that both require an exam can differ greatly in experience requirements, bonds, and scope. A state without a statewide exam may still have strict local licensing in its largest cities.
- This is one cross-section. The comparison covers one year and one point in each state's rules. It cannot show what happened to wages when a state introduced or dropped an exam, which is the comparison needed to estimate the effect of licensing.
How to use this when choosing where to license
If you are deciding which state license to pursue, compare the market first and then the requirements. Pay is driven mostly by place. Licensing rules determine how long it takes to qualify and how much it costs: application and exam fees, bond face value, experience proof, and whether an existing license or exam can carry over. Our cost calculator, the difficulty index, and the reciprocity finder cover those questions. A license may still matter to your income in ways this survey cannot measure, such as the jobs you are allowed to bid, the size of contracts you can sign, and whether you can work for yourself.
Sources
Wage data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state and national estimates, wage and salary employees only. Coverage definitions are in the OEWS frequently asked questions. Licensing data: the exam requirement recorded in each state-and-trade guide on this site, verified against the official sources cited in that guide. The table is recalculated whenever the site is built, so it follows corrections to the guides and new BLS releases.