Journeyman Plumber Salary in Texas 2026,
$59,840 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Texas figure is $59,840 a year, or $28.77 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $38,270 at the 10th percentile to $81,890 at the 90th and quartiles at $47,380 and $74,100. That is 6.2% below the national median of $63,800 — but Texas levies no personal income tax, so the take-home comparison is considerably more favourable than the gross one. The row is SOC 47-2152, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $62,810, then Beaumont-Port Arthur $62,220, Odessa $61,870, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands $61,300 and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington $61,250. All five are above the state median and within about three percent of each other. Austin reflects construction demand; Beaumont-Port Arthur and Odessa reflect refinery, petrochemical and oilfield piping work sitting on the same occupation code.

Registration as an apprentice with the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, documented hours of work under a licensed plumber, completion of required training, and passing the journeyman examination. The board also issues the Tradesman Plumber-Limited licence at a narrower scope and the Master Plumber licence above journeyman. The licence is a genuine supply barrier and it is what separates this occupation from the pipefitting work counted alongside it.

Yes, and it matters. SOC 47-2152 covers plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters together, and Texas licenses only the first of those three. Industrial process piping in refineries and petrochemical plants requires no state licence — the plumbing licence covers potable water, sanitary drainage and building gas systems. So the $59,840 median blends a licensed building trade with an unlicensed industrial one, and the Gulf coast metro figures are substantially influenced by the second.

Yes, on two grounds. First, the licence is what permits independent work and, at master level, contracting — and the $74,100 seventy-fifth percentile and $81,890 ninetieth are largely contracting and specialised industrial work. Second, the absence of a state income tax means the published gap against the national median substantially overstates the difference in what is actually kept. The apprenticeship hours are a real time cost, but the trade in Texas remains one where the licence pays for itself through the ability to contract.

It means the metro table is partly a map of which trade is where. Texas licenses plumbers through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners with documented apprentice hours and an examination; it imposes no licence on industrial pipefitters, whose work in refineries and chemical plants falls outside the plumbing scope. Beaumont-Port Arthur at $62,220 and Odessa at $61,870 are Gulf coast and Permian markets where pipefitting dominates; Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $62,810 and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $61,250 are construction markets where licensed plumbing does. The $59,840 state median averages two labour markets with different entry barriers and different cycles.

Not as a weak market. Texas publishes $59,840 against a national $63,800, and below New Mexico $61,440, Nebraska $60,970 and Virginia $60,470 — but all three of those states levy a personal income tax and Texas does not. Once that is accounted for, the Texas position is competitive rather than lagging. The other correction is geographic: every published Texas metro is above the state median, so the figure is being held down by rural and small-metro employment across a very large state, not by the markets where most plumbers actually work.

Two places, and they are worth distinguishing. In building plumbing it is the master licence, which permits contracting and supervising and converts a wage into a business. In industrial work it is turnaround and specialised process piping on the Gulf coast, which pays premium rates during plant outages and requires no licence at all. The $74,100 seventy-fifth percentile and $81,890 ninetieth are reached by either route, and a plumber deciding between them is choosing between a regulated path with a business at the end of it and an unregulated one with cyclical premium earnings.