Electrician Salary in South Carolina 2026,
$58,740 Median | BLS Data by City

A median $58,740 a year, or $28.24 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 7.0% below the national median of $63,190. The middle half falls between $47,910 and $66,190 and the full band runs $44,330 to $77,800. The strong 10th percentile is what distinguishes this state regionally: entry-level electrical work in South Carolina pays well above what it pays in Alabama or Arkansas.

Spartanburg at $62,050, marginally ahead of Columbia $60,390, Greenville-Anderson-Greer $60,210, Charleston-North Charleston $59,010 and Florence $57,550. Under five thousand dollars separates the whole table, so relocating within South Carolina is not a pay strategy. Spartanburg's edge reflects the upstate's automotive assembly and supplier plants rather than any cost-of-living effect.

South Carolina licenses electrical contractors through the Contractor's Licensing Board at the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which is the credential required to contract for electrical work in the state. Individual journeyman-level requirements are handled at municipal and county level rather than by a single statewide journeyman licence, so an electrician working across South Carolina deals with the state contractor framework plus local requirements where the work is performed.

The employment data points that way. A location quotient of 0.71 means the state employs electricians at well under three quarters of the national rate per worker — about 8,010 posts — while running BMW's assembly operation at Spartanburg, Boeing's at Charleston, a substantial supplier base and major nuclear and utility infrastructure. That combination of thin supply and industrial demand is the most plausible explanation for why the bottom of South Carolina's band sits so much higher than its neighbours'.

It leads most of its immediate peer group: South Carolina's $58,740 sits above Texas $58,570, New Mexico $58,390, Georgia $58,320 and Florida $57,250, with only Kentucky at $59,720 ahead. Combined with no local income taxes, a low assessment ratio on owner-occupied housing and a strong entry-level figure, South Carolina is a comparatively good regional market for this trade — though the annual vehicle property tax is a genuine offset for anyone running a work truck.

Because scarcity bites hardest where employers have least discretion. An industrial plant that needs a controls electrician can wait, recruit nationally or pay a premium; a commercial contractor who needs bodies on a schedule cannot, and must bid the local entry rate up until people appear. With a location quotient of 0.71 against automotive, aerospace and nuclear demand, South Carolina's construction and service employers are competing for a small pool against industrial employers who will always outbid them — so the floor rises. The result is a $44,330 tenth percentile that looks out of place next to a median only 7.0% under the national figure.

It counts employees, so the self-employed service electricians who make up a real part of South Carolina's residential market are outside the survey. It reports wages as paid, meaning overtime on plant outages and construction schedules is inside the number. And with the whole metro table inside five thousand dollars, the figure genuinely describes the state well — which means the variance that matters, between commercial construction and industrial or nuclear work, is not visible in the geography at all.

Sector first: automotive, aerospace and continuous-process plant work above commercial construction and residential service, which is roughly the distance from the $47,910 twenty-fifth percentile to the $66,190 seventy-fifth. Controls, instrumentation and PLC competence second, because that is what the upstate supplier base and Charleston aerospace actually compete for. Nuclear and utility qualification third — the Savannah River and V. C. Summer sites have their own requirements and their own rates, and that is where the $77,800 ninetieth percentile sits. Contractor licensure and crew responsibility fourth. Geography contributes almost nothing here.