Plumber Salary in Arizona 2026,
$62,070 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Arizona figure is $62,070 a year, or $29.84 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $45,640 at the 10th percentile to $100,120 at the 90th. That is 2.7% below the national median of $63,800. The row is SOC 47-2152, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters, so the industrial pipefitting wages at the top of the band are inside the same figure as residential plumbing.

Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler leads at $63,750, followed by Tucson $59,070, Yuma $58,980, Prescott Valley-Prescott $58,670 and Flagstaff $58,520. The whole state spans under 9% from top to bottom metro, so the Arizona metro table is one of the flatter ones in this trade — the employer's sector is worth much more than the postcode.

Not as an employee. Arizona licenses contractors rather than tradespeople: the Arizona Registrar of Contractors issues the C-37 plumbing contracting licences to the business that contracts for the work, and there is no statewide journeyman plumber licence for the individual. That means an Arizona employer can hire an unlicensed plumber to work under its own ROC licence, and it also means the ROC licence is the step that lets someone bid work directly — which is why it lines up with the $100,120 top of the band.

It flattens the whole ladder. Arizona taxes income at a flat 2.5% under SB 1827, so the rate at the $45,640 entry tier is identical to the rate at the $100,120 ninetieth percentile — there is no bracket creep as a plumber moves from service work into industrial pipefitting or into contracting. Against the neighbouring peer states on this row — Utah $61,900, Nevada $61,610 and New Mexico $61,440 — Arizona's nominal median sits in the same cluster, and the low flat rate is most of what distinguishes the net outcome.

The volume argument is strong and the wage argument is average. Arizona employs plumbers at 1.22 times the national concentration on the back of sustained construction, and the national occupation is projected to grow 4.5%; but the state median of $62,070 sits 2.7% under the national figure, and the metro spread is narrow. The upside is real but it lives at the top of the band — industrial pipefitting at the $79,610 seventy-fifth percentile and ROC-licensed contracting at $100,120.

Because concentration and price move in opposite directions when supply is elastic. A location quotient of 1.22 on 11,810 workers means Arizona's construction economy pulls plumbers in, and with no statewide journeyman licence there is nothing throttling that inflow. Meanwhile the national median is lifted by dense union markets in the Northeast and upper Midwest that Arizona does not resemble. The result is a busy market that clears at $62,070 — 2.7% under the US figure.

It is not a plumber-only number. SOC 47-2152 reports Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters as one occupation, and pipefitting on industrial and process systems generally pays above residential plumbing. A residential service plumber in Tucson reading $62,070 as the going rate for that work is reading a blended figure; the $49,590 twenty-fifth percentile is closer to the residential service picture, and the $79,610 seventy-fifth reflects the mechanical and industrial half of the row.

Overtime and call-out work first, then sector. Arizona's summer is a service season — heat drives failures, and residential service work in Phoenix carries after-hours and emergency premiums that the OEWS annual figure absorbs without showing. Beyond that, the shift-work and turnaround schedules on industrial sites push a pipefitter's annual earnings well above the base rate, which is a large part of why the top of the state band reaches $100,120 while the median sits at $62,070.