Plumbing service work, new construction and industrial pipefitting should not be treated as one uniform business. This September 8, 2026 review identifies what national workforce figures include, where contractor counts overlap and which operating measures need your own job records.
Workforce benchmarks
| Measure | Value | Reference period |
|---|---|---|
| Plumber, pipefitter and steamfitter jobs | 510,600 | 2025 |
| Median annual wage | $63,800 | May 2025 |
| Projected employment growth | 7% | 2025-2035 |
| Average annual projected openings | 42,000 | 2025-2035 |
Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, reviewed September 8, 2026. This is a combined occupation, not a count of licensed residential plumbers. Projected openings include replacements and growth. Pay excludes self-employed earnings and is not a customer billing rate.
The earlier draft's claimed national shortage was not established by these figures. Track your own hiring lead time, qualified applicants and supervised training capacity instead of treating a projections table as a vacancy survey.
Market boundaries matter
The Census contractor profile reports 111,207 employer establishments in 2023 for plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors combined. It cannot support separate plumbing-only and HVAC-only business totals. An establishment is also different from a company, which may operate more than one location.
Before citing a plumbing market value, specify geography, year, residential/commercial scope, installation versus service and treatment of parts. The reviewed sources do not substantiate the earlier draft's plumbing-only revenue total or service-mix percentages.
Compare service tickets fairly
Separate drain service, fixture replacement, water-heater work, repiping and construction phases in your internal reporting. Keep the approved scope and final billed amount linked. A change in average ticket can be explained by more large replacement projects even if prices for each service stayed the same.
For each completed-job cohort, report job count, median and mean billed amount, direct labor, materials, credits and unpaid balances. Report callbacks separately from planned follow-up visits. Compare fully recorded jobs; incomplete costs can make an apparently profitable service line look better than it is.
Illustrative example: 20 jobs produce $12,000 of billed revenue before tax. The mean is $600 per job. That does not make $600 a standard service-call price, and it says nothing about the median or margin until you inspect the underlying distribution and costs.
Recurring work and customer retention
Keep inspections, scheduled maintenance and emergency requests separate. Track customers offered an agreement, those who accept, visits owed, visits completed and renewals actually due. The same household can have both recurring work and a separate repair; avoid counting that customer twice when reporting retention.
An agreement's promised revenue is different from invoicing or collection. Review the work obligation alongside staff capacity. This article does not establish that plumbing agreements should achieve an HVAC attach rate or that recurring work guarantees a higher business valuation.
Software evaluation for a plumbing operator
Demonstrate an urgent service request, a reviewed quote, a changed scope, completion records and payment recovery. If you require backflow reports, inspection video, credential-aware emergency dispatch or a native flat-rate book, check those exact workflows instead of accepting a generic job-notes field.
SnapJobAI supports customers, jobs, equipment history, reviewed estimates, milestone billing, invoices and recorded job costs. The specialist workflows above remain unfinished. Provider connections and native distribution need verification. See current plumbing capabilities.
Source note
This is a primary-source compilation with explicitly labeled example arithmetic. The previous draft's claimed service-ticket recovery study, unsourced ticket prices, shortage count and software-adoption percentages have been withdrawn. No new operator survey was conducted for this revision.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
How many licensed plumbers are there?
The BLS occupation used here combines plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters. Its job count is not a register of licensed plumbers.
What is a typical plumbing service-call price?
This article does not establish a universal price. Compare the same service scope, location and period, and keep billed amounts separate from costs and collection.
Can plumbing and HVAC contractor counts be added together?
Not when both figures come from the same combined Census industry. Doing so would count that shared category twice.