Plumber Salary in Houston, TX 2026,
$61,300 Median | BLS + Market Data

Houston plumbers earn a BLS median of $61,300/yr, or $29.47 an hour, across the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro, with a published band from $39,920 to $85,680. That is 3.9% below the US median for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters, with no state income tax applied. BLS counts 10,980 people in the occupation locally.

Yes, modestly — the metro runs 2.4% above the Texas statewide figure, reflecting the volume of industrial and commercial pipework here. Among peer metros Houston sits below Denver at $63,900, Phoenix at $63,750 and Austin at $62,810, just above Dallas at $61,250, and above Charlotte at $58,690.

Through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, which licenses statewide. The ladder runs from registered apprentice, working under supervision and accumulating hours, to tradesman plumber for residential work, to journeyman plumber for general work, to master plumber, which permits running a plumbing business and pulling permits. Each step requires documented hours and an examination. This structure is unusually consequential for pay: the licence tier a plumber holds determines what work they can legally perform, and therefore what they can be paid.

Generally yes, particularly during turnarounds. Refinery and petrochemical maintenance requires welding and fitting to code on process piping, with inspection and documentation that building plumbing does not involve, and shutdown work brings sustained overtime that lifts annual earnings well above the equivalent hourly comparison. The trade-off is irregular work patterns — turnarounds are intense and finite — and travel between sites. The classification BLS uses covers both trades, which is why this page's band is as wide as it is.

It is one of the strongest. Entry requires no degree, the licence ladder is clear and well defined, the region builds continuously, and industrial maintenance provides a second stream of work independent of construction cycles. About 1,040 openings a year pro-rate to this metro, driven heavily by retirements from an ageing workforce. The realistic caveats are the physical demands and the fact that reaching the top of this band means either master licensure and business ownership or moving into industrial work.

The BLS row that produces this page's figures covers building plumbers and industrial pipefitters together. In most metros that is a minor technicality. Here it is substantial: the Ship Channel refining and petrochemical complex employs a large pipefitting workforce doing process piping to code, while the region's continuous residential and commercial construction employs an equally large plumbing workforce. The skills overlap only partly and the work patterns differ entirely. Anyone using this band should identify which trade they are in before treating the median as relevant.

Texas's plumbing licence structure — apprentice, tradesman, journeyman, master — is more prescriptive than most trades, and that has an underappreciated benefit: the career path is legible in advance. A plumber can see exactly what hours and examinations separate them from the next tier and what work each tier permits. That transparency is rare in skilled trades and it is one reason plumbing retains apprentices better than several comparable trades. It also explains why the band on this page has such distinct steps in it.

A 4.5% national growth projection understates what is happening in this trade. The workforce is old, apprenticeship intake fell for a generation while trade careers were culturally out of favour, and roughly 1,040 openings a year pro-rate to this metro against a workforce of about 11,000. Contractors across the region report difficulty finding licensed journeymen in particular. Someone entering the trade now is competing against a thin cohort for work an experienced generation is leaving, which is a favourable position that the headline growth figure conceals entirely.