Electrician Salary in New York 2026,
$78,750 Median | BLS Data by City

New York electricians earn a median $78,750 a year, $37.86 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025. The middle half of the trade earns between $60,480 and $106,420, and the full range runs $45,740 to $131,640. The wide top end reflects overtime and premium time on New York's transit, healthcare and commercial fit-out work rather than a different base rate.

New York-Newark-Jersey City pays the most at $79,020, but only just: Watertown-Fort Drum is at $78,550, Buffalo-Cheektowaga at $77,930, Glens Falls at $77,660 and Rochester at $77,310. This is one of the flattest metro tables in the country for any trade, and it tells you that where you work in New York matters far less than who you work for.

No. New York has no statewide electrician licence. Licensing is entirely municipal or county-level: New York City issues master electrician and special electrician licences through the Department of Buildings, and Buffalo, Yonkers, Nassau County and Suffolk County each administer their own licensing. Journeymen generally work under a licensed master or contractor rather than holding a personal state credential.

It means your credential may not travel. A New York City master electrician licence does not authorise contracting in Nassau or Suffolk, and vice versa, so electricians working across the metropolitan area often hold more than one municipal licence. Union membership is more portable than licensure here, since IBEW travel and reciprocity arrangements let journeymen work across local jurisdictions.

In retrofit rather than new build. Local Law 97 emissions caps on large New York City buildings are driving electrification of heating and hot water systems, transit and rail power upgrades continue across the MTA network, and Long Island is absorbing offshore wind interconnection and substation work. All three are service and upgrade work in occupied buildings and infrastructure, which is why premium and off-hours time is such a large part of New York earnings.

Because New York's building stock is old and largely built out. A state with heavy new residential and commercial construction employs more electricians per worker than one where the work is mostly service, retrofit and maintenance in existing structures. New York's 0.85 location quotient does not mean electricians are scarce here; it means the work profile is different, and it explains why service and maintenance experience is valued more in this market than raw rough-in speed.

A large share. The $131,640 at the 90th percentile is an annual wage figure, and in New York's transit, hospital and occupied-building work a great deal of it is performed on nights, weekends and shutdowns at premium rates. That means the top of this range is partly a description of hours worked rather than of hourly value, and it is not always reproducible in a year with fewer shutdowns.

In most of New York, yes, and more so than in states with statewide licensure. Without a state licence to define a journeyman, the collective agreement is what standardises the rate, which is exactly why the metro figures are so compressed. Non-union residential and small commercial work sits nearer the state 25th percentile of $60,480, and the route from there to the median and beyond usually runs through an apprenticeship or an organising route into a local.