Electrician Salary in Arkansas 2026,
$49,070 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $49,070 a year, or $23.59 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, which is 22.3% below the national median of $63,190. The middle half runs $38,550 to $62,380 and the full band $34,910 to $74,460. That is an unusually wide upper half against a compressed lower one, which means the state average understates what an industrially qualified Arkansas electrician earns.

Fort Smith at $52,500, followed by Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers $49,230, Jonesboro $48,740, Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway $48,200 and Hot Springs $46,650. The top four are within about four thousand dollars of one another, so unlike most states there is no metro in Arkansas where relocating alone changes an electrician's position much. Sector and licence tier move pay here; geography barely does.

Through the Arkansas Board of Electrical Examiners at the Department of Labor and Licensing. Arkansas registers apprentices, then licenses journeymen and masters on the basis of documented experience under a licensed electrician plus a written examination. Because the board is statewide, the licence is valid across Arkansas rather than city by city — which is a meaningful advantage over states that leave the credential to municipalities, and it makes moving between the north-west corridor, the river valley and central Arkansas straightforward.

Because a large share of Arkansas electrical work is residential and light commercial construction, and that segment pays within a narrow range across the whole state. The 10th percentile of $34,910 and the 25th of $38,550 are only about thirty-six hundred dollars apart as a result. The distribution then widens to $62,380 at the 75th percentile because industrial, utility and plant maintenance work is priced on a different basis entirely — it pays for availability, controls competence and shutdown hours rather than for installation output.

Substantially. Arkansas has among the lowest housing costs in the United States, a top income tax rate of 3.9% after the 2024 reduction, no local income taxes and largely no state sales tax on groceries. Against a national median of $63,190 the 22.3% nominal gap narrows a great deal once those are accounted for. What the cost of living does not fix is the ceiling: an Arkansas electrician at the 90th percentile earns $74,460, and neighbouring Florida at $57,250, North Carolina at $56,800 and Alabama at $55,690 all have higher medians.

It makes the credential portable and the ladder explicit. Because the Board of Electrical Examiners registers apprentices and licenses journeymen and masters statewide, an electrician who qualifies in Jonesboro can work in Fort Smith or Fayetteville without re-credentialing, and an employer anywhere in Arkansas knows exactly what a licence tier means. In states where electrical licensing is municipal, both of those are uncertain. The practical consequence in a state with a compressed lower band is that the fastest route upward — moving from residential into industrial and utility work, and from journeyman to master — is administratively frictionless within Arkansas.

It reports wages as paid, so overtime is inside it — an electrician on plant shutdown or heavy commercial schedules sits above the median partly on hours. It counts employees only, leaving self-employed service electricians outside the survey, which in a state with a great deal of small-town service work is a real omission. And with the top four metros within about four thousand dollars, the statewide figure genuinely does describe most of the state, which is unusual and makes the sector distinction — residential against industrial — the only large variance the data leaves unexplained.

Licence tier first, because Arkansas's board makes journeyman and master real, portable and examined. Sector second and it is the biggest single jump: industrial, food processing, utility and data centre maintenance against residential and light commercial is roughly the distance from the $38,550 twenty-fifth percentile to the $62,380 seventy-fifth. Controls and instrumentation competence third, which is what industrial employers in the river valley and the north-west corridor compete for. Outage and shutdown availability fourth, and that is where the $74,460 ninetieth percentile sits. Geography contributes least — about six thousand dollars across the whole published metro table.