Electrician Salary in Minnesota 2026,
$78,160 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Minnesota figure is $78,160 a year, or $37.58 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 23.7% above the national median of $63,190. The band runs from $47,480 at the 10th percentile to $118,820 at the 90th, and that spread reflects the licence ladder: registered apprentices, journeyworkers and master electricians are all counted on the same row.

Through the Department of Labor and Industry, under standards set by the Board of Electricity. An apprentice registers with the department and works under a licensed electrician, accumulating verified on-the-job hours alongside classroom instruction, then sits the journeyworker examination. The master licence requires further licensed experience, and contractors need an electrical contractor licence with the required bond and insurance on top of that.

Mankato at $83,120, then Duluth $82,700, with Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington and St. Cloud both at $81,890 and Rochester lowest at $79,650. The Twin Cities do not lead, which is unusual. Outstate industrial, agricultural processing and utility work generates demand that does not track population, and employers there pay to keep licensed electricians who could otherwise take metro work.

On the numbers, yes. Its median sits alongside Massachusetts at $79,420, the District of Columbia $78,970, New York $78,750, Connecticut $77,540 and New Jersey $77,250 — all considerably more expensive places to live. The 90th percentile of $118,820 is also high for the trade, reflecting union commercial and industrial work, master electricians and the state's data centre and manufacturing project pipeline.

Master electricians sit in the upper part of this band, between the $101,410 seventy-fifth percentile and the $118,820 ninetieth, though BLS does not publish a separate row for them. The master licence requires licensed journeyworker experience beyond the initial licence, and it is the prerequisite for holding an electrical contractor licence — which is the route most Minnesota electricians take to the top decile.

Because supply is regulated tightly and demand is unusually electrical. The Department of Labor and Industry requires documented, verified apprenticeship hours before anyone sits the journeyworker examination, so the pipeline runs at a fixed speed regardless of how badly employers need people. Meanwhile the state's demand mix is heavy: data centres, medical-device and food manufacturing, a hospital sector that builds continuously, and a climate that makes electrical heating retrofits and utility work year-round business. A location quotient of exactly 1.0 across 14,350 jobs says Minnesota is not over-staffed with electricians relative to its size — which, combined with a licensing clock nobody can accelerate, is precisely what pushes a wage 23.7% above the national median.

Three things, and they overlap. Union commercial and industrial agreements in the Twin Cities set rates and premiums well above the residential market and include overtime and shift structures that push annual earnings up sharply on project work. The master licence opens supervisory and contractor roles that pay on responsibility rather than on hours. And Minnesota's particular project mix — data centres in particular — runs schedules that generate sustained overtime for the electricians on them. That combination is why the ninetieth percentile of $118,820 sits so far above the $101,410 seventy-fifth, and it is worth knowing that most of the gap is earned rather than granted.

Around the hours, because they are the binding constraint. Register the apprenticeship with the Department of Labor and Industry immediately, since hours worked outside a registered arrangement are hard to credit; take the classroom instruction seriously because it is examined; and choose an employer whose work mix will produce the range of hours the licence requires rather than the highest apprentice wage. The $47,480 tenth percentile is the price of admission and it does not last long — the journeyworker licence roughly doubles the position in the band. After that, the decision is whether to pursue the master licence and the contractor route toward the top decile, or to specialise in industrial and controls work where the rates are highest without the business risk.