Commercial Roofer Salary 2026,
What Commercial Roofers Actually Earn

How much do commercial roofers make in 2026?

Commercial roofers are counted in the BLS roofers series: OEWS May 2025 puts the SOC 47-2181 national median at $55,440 a year ($26.65 an hour), with the bottom 10% near $37,460 and the top 10% at $81,720. Commercial low-slope work sits in the upper half of that band, and the reason is warranty economics rather than physical difficulty. Single-ply membrane systems — thermoplastic polyolefin, ethylene propylene diene monomer, polyvinyl chloride — along with modified bitumen and built-up assemblies, are sold with manufacturer warranties that can only be issued when the installation is performed by a certified applicator and inspected by the manufacturer. That makes certified crews commercially necessary, not merely skilled, and it puts a floor under their rate. The technical content has also grown: tapered insulation design, vapour control, air barrier continuity, roof-mounted equipment curbs and solar attachment details all sit on the commercial roofer's scope now. Union agreements in metropolitan markets add another layer, setting rates plus pension and health contributions that never appear in a wage figure. Foremen on warranty-bearing systems, who carry both quality and inspection responsibility, sit at the top of the band. Employment is projected to grow 5.9% through 2034 with roughly 12,700 openings a year. → Full commercial roofer career guide, career path, credentials & placement →

Note: $55,440 blends every experience level and every setting in this occupation. For pay by level alone, see Pay by Level below.

Published (BLS): BLS OEWS May 2025, SOC 47-2181, United States national estimate. Public, methodologically rigorous, but sampled on a rolling 3-year basis and published ~10 months after collection — so it reflects wages that are already 1–2 years old by the time you read them.

Level and certification medians: distributed across the published BLS percentile range for this SOC code (P10 through P90) according to the credential tiers this occupation actually hires at. They are modeled reference points, not separately surveyed wages.

State and metro figures: modeled — the BLS national median multiplied by the GlobalCybers state wage index, and for metros by the published metro index for that state. They are estimates of local pay, not BLS state or metropolitan-area observations, and are labelled as modeled in the tables below.

No verified placement sample:GlobalCybers does not yet publish a placement median for this role, so no "verified" figure appears anywhere on this page.

Full site methodology & data sources →