What is the highest-paid construction trade in NYC?

Construction Managers earn the highest average, at $162,800/year across the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area, per 2025 BLS OEWS wage estimates.

What is prevailing wage for NYC construction workers?

Prevailing wage is the legal minimum wage-plus-benefits rate a union trade worker must be paid on a NYC public work contract under Labor Law Article 8 — not an open-market average. It's set per trade by the NYC Comptroller and splits into a cash wage and a supplemental benefit rate (health, pension, annuity). The current highest total rate is Iron Worker – Structural at $150.97/hr.

Is prevailing wage the same as the average market wage?

No. Prevailing wage (from the NYC Comptroller) is a legal floor that applies only to public work contracts. The BLS OEWS averages on this page are open-market pay across all NYC-metro employers, public and private — the two numbers measure different things and shouldn't be compared directly.

Does BLS publish NYC construction wages by borough or years of experience?

No. BLS OEWS only publishes at the metro-area level, not by borough, and it's an establishment-level survey (employers report their pay distribution), not a worker-level survey — so it has no experience or seniority breakdown for this occupation-and-area combination.

Pay & Labor

NYC Construction Wages

Name: NYC Metro Construction Trade Wages
Creator: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The highest-paid construction trade in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area is Construction Managers, earning an average of $162,800 per year, according to 2025 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage estimates.

Source: BLS OEWS, 2025

BLS does not publish wage data at the city or borough level — this metro-area figure is the standard proxy used for "NYC" wage comparisons, updated by BLS roughly once a year and refreshed here manually, not a live feed. Median wage (shown alongside mean below) is pulled from a separate BLS series, now populated for all 13 trades. OEWS is an establishment-level survey (employers report their own pay distribution), not a worker-level survey, so it has no years-of-experience or seniority breakdown at all — no legitimate public dataset supports a "wages by experience" view for this occupation-and-area combination, so none is shown. Full table: bls.gov.

All Occupations Avg.

$86,310

All Construction Avg.

$82,140

Construction Managers$162,800
$162,800Median $158,000
Elevator & Escalator Installers and Repairers$134,710
$134,710Median $136,000
First-Line Supervisors, Construction Trades$108,250
$108,250Median $103,990
Structural Iron and Steel Workers$101,920
$101,920Median $102,060
Operating Engineers & Construction Equipment Operators$100,710
$100,710Median $95,050
Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters$90,820
$90,820Median $78,610
Electricians$88,670
$88,670Median $79,020
Sheet Metal Workers$84,380
$84,380Median $76,730
Carpenters$80,560
$80,560Median $74,300
Roofers$77,160
$77,160Median $76,400
Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers$73,940
$73,940Median $65,670
Painters, Construction and Maintenance$69,930
$69,930Median $61,420
Construction Laborers$67,440
$67,440Median $61,270

Why there is no year-over-year column yet: BLS publishes one OEWS estimate a year and its API serves only the current vintage — requests for earlier years return “No Data Available” — while every archived route (the 2024 metro tables, the special-request files, and the flat-file server) refuses automated clients. Rather than estimate a change for a real trade, this page shows none until a verified prior-year figure is on file. BLS also cautions that OEWS estimates are not designed to be compared across years, so any change shown here in future will carry that caveat.

Public Work Rates

NYC Union Prevailing Wage, by Trade

A different number from the averages above: this is the legal minimum a union trade worker must be paid on a NYC public work contract under Labor Law Article 8 — not an open-market average, and not what every construction worker citywide earns. Each rate splits into wage (cash) and supplement (health, pension, and annuity fund contributions) — hover a bar for the split.

Source: NYC Comptroller, published 2026-01-19

Extracted directly from the Comptroller's own Construction Worker Prevailing Wage Schedule PDF, covering 7/1/2025–6/30/2026 — the most recent schedule published as of this update; a 2026-2027 edition wasn't yet available. Several trades step up to a higher rate partway through this period; the effective window shown per trade is the specific dated figure taken from the PDF, not necessarily today's rate if that trade has since stepped — see the full schedule for later steps. Full PDF · fetched 2026-08-10.

Iron Worker – Structural$150.97/hr
$150.97/hrLocal #40 & #361
Operating Engineer (Road & Heavy Construction I)$132.64/hr
$132.64/hrOperating Engineer Local #14
Electrician$128.90/hr
$128.90/hrLocal #3
Elevator Constructor$125.60/hr
$125.60/hrLocal #1
Steamfitter$123.69/hr
$123.69/hrLocal #638-B
Plumber$121.45/hr
$121.45/hrPlumbers Local #1
Stone Mason – Setter$116.14/hr
$116.14/hrBricklayers District Council
Sheet Metal Worker$114.78/hr
$114.78/hrLocal #28
Carpenter – Building Commercial$108.13/hr
$108.13/hrCarpenters District Council
Bricklayer$105.39/hr
$105.39/hrBricklayer District Council
Laborer – Heavy & Highway$101.33/hr
$101.33/hrLocal #731
Roofer$89.78/hr
$89.78/hrLocal #8
Painter – Brush & Roller$88.88/hr
$88.88/hrDistrict Council of Painters #9
Cement & Concrete Worker$81.48/hr
$81.48/hrCement & Concrete Workers District Council 16
Mason Tender$75.94/hr
$75.94/hrLocal #79

Company Wage Breakdowns

Coming Soon

A levels.fyi-style breakdown of pay by employer isn't possible from public data today — no NYC dataset ties a wage to a specific company. See Our Technology for what we're building toward instead.

Worker Resources

NYS Prevailing Wage Schedules
Official public-work prevailing wage rates by trade and county from the NYS Department of Labor.
NYC DOB License Types
Requirements for DOB-issued licenses and registrations (GC, master plumber, electrician, etc.).
OSHA Region 2 (New York)
Federal workplace safety office covering NYC — complaints, inspections, and compliance assistance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the highest-paid construction trade in NYC?: Construction Managers earn the highest average, at $162,800/year across the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area, per 2025 BLS OEWS wage estimates.
What is prevailing wage for NYC construction workers?: Prevailing wage is the legal minimum wage-plus-benefits rate a union trade worker must be paid on a NYC public work contract under Labor Law Article 8 — not an open-market average. It's set per trade by the NYC Comptroller and splits into a cash wage and a supplemental benefit rate (health, pension, annuity). The current highest total rate is Iron Worker – Structural at $150.97/hr.
Is prevailing wage the same as the average market wage?: No. Prevailing wage (from the NYC Comptroller) is a legal floor that applies only to public work contracts. The BLS OEWS averages on this page are open-market pay across all NYC-metro employers, public and private — the two numbers measure different things and shouldn't be compared directly.
Does BLS publish NYC construction wages by borough or years of experience?: No. BLS OEWS only publishes at the metro-area level, not by borough, and it's an establishment-level survey (employers report their pay distribution), not a worker-level survey — so it has no experience or seniority breakdown for this occupation-and-area combination.

Looking for who's hiring? See Companies for the busiest firms by permit volume.