How to ask for a raise as a journeyman electrician

Ask for one specific number, backed by three others: the BLS wage percentiles for your metro, a union scale or prevailing wage rate for your county, and a few dated local ads. Ask after you've earned something (your card, a big job, your review), say the number, and stop talking. Shops are already moving: more than 8 in 10 firms in the AGC and NCCER 2026 Workforce Survey raised base pay for hourly craft as much as or more than the year before.

None of this needs a threat. A boss who hears "here's the market, here's what I've done, here's my number" hears a man who wants to stay and get paid right.

01Step 1: Get your three numbers

Before you ask, know where your rate sits against the market, using numbers your boss can check himself.

Number one: the BLS percentiles for your metro

BLS publishes electrician pay by metro area every spring. The newest set is May 2025. Look at the 10th percentile, the median and the 90th, not just the average.

Two things to know before you quote it. These are straight-time hourly wages, with no overtime, per diem or benefits. And BLS counts apprentices and helpers in the same code as journeymen, which pulls the median down. A licensed J-man with years in should expect to sit above the median, not at it. Our 2026 journeyman pay breakdown has every state.

Number two: union scale or a prevailing wage rate

Even if you've never been near the hall, the union sheet and the prevailing wage rate are public yardsticks for your area.

• Union sheets. Many locals post them. IBEW Local 340's inside sheet, effective June 1, 2026, pays a journeyman wireman $53.70 an hour, with a $3.00 raise set for Feb. 1, 2027. Compare wage to wage. The package total ($95.77 on that sheet) includes pension and health the hand never sees on his check. Our post on how to read a union wage sheet shows how to line it up against an open-shop offer.
• Davis-Bacon rates. Federal construction contracts over $2,000 have to pay "locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits," and the rates by county are public on SAM.gov (U.S. Department of Labor). Look up the electrician line for your county.

Number three: two or three local ads, with dates

Pull ads for the same work you do (commercial, service, industrial) within your drive. Only count ads that list a rate. Write down the date, the company type and the hours, because a $40 ad with 40 hours and a $36 ad with 6-10s are not the same check.

Here's how the three fit together. Say you're a journeyman in Columbus making $30 an hour, with eight years in and your card. BLS puts the Columbus median at $31.11 and the 90th at $45.39. If local commercial ads for licensed hands run in the mid-$30s, an ask of $34 is grounded in three numbers. Your boss can check every one of them.

If you can't tell where you stand, start with the signs you're underpaid.

02Step 2: Pick your timing

Ask right after you've shown what you're worth, and before the shop locks in next year's numbers.

The best moments:

1. Right after your journeyman card. On a union sheet the jump is automatic. Local 340's 80% apprentice rate is $42.96 and the journeyman rate is $53.70, a $10.74 step. At an open shop, nobody moves you unless you ask. Ask the week the card comes in.
2. After a job you ran well. You took the gear, the prints and two apprentices and finished on schedule. Ask within a couple of weeks, while the PM still remembers.
3. At your review, or before the shop bids next year's work. Labor rates go into bids. Raises are easier before the numbers are set.
4. When the shop has backlog and is short-handed. If they're turning work down for lack of manpower, they know what replacing you costs.

Bad moments: in the middle of a blowup, in front of the crew, or the day the GC chewed out your foreman.

03Step 3: Ask for one number

Ask for a specific rate, not "more." Say it plain, give your reasons in two sentences, and let him answer.

Something like this, in the office, not on the tailgate:

"I've been here three years and I ran the switchgear and feeders on the last job. I looked at the numbers. BLS has the median in our metro at $31.11, and local ads for licensed hands are in the mid-30s. I'm at $30. I'd like to be at $34."

Then stop talking. If he says he needs to think about it, ask when you'll hear back, and follow up that day.

What the number is worth, by our math:

A raise lifts your overtime rate too, since time and a half is figured on your regular rate. A $4 raise is $6 more on every OT hour.

Once you have a yes, send a short text or email back: the new rate and the date it starts. That's not distrust. It's how you avoid a fight on the next check.

04Step 4: Know what else you can ask for

A higher rate isn't the only thing a shop can give you, and some of the others are easier for them to say yes to.

Watch one trap. Per diem is not a raise. If a shop offers to cut your rate and "make it up" in per diem, read whether per diem is taxable first. The IRS treats a rate cut paid back that way as wages, and your overtime gets figured on the lower rate.

05What to do if the boss says no

Ask what it would take and by when, then decide if you can live with the answer.

1. Ask for the path. "What would I need to do to get to $34, and can we look at it again in 90 days?" Write down what he says.
2. Ask about the work. If he says the work doesn't support it, ask what's in backlog for next year. A shop with no next job is a different problem than a cheap shop.
3. Check the market again. Other shops are moving. One national electrical contractor told us they'd "been going higher and higher on the pay rate" just to stay competitive. In the same AGC and NCCER survey, 88% of firms with craft openings said those jobs were as hard or harder to fill than a year ago.
4. Decide on your own clock. If 90 days come and go, that's your answer.

If you end up weighing a move, don't jump for a small bump without doing the math on the whole check. Our post on switching companies for $3 more an hour walks through it, and what your license is worth covers how a card from another state changes your number.

Want a fourth number before you walk into the office? Run your Pay Check to see what electricians with your license make near you. Takes about a minute, and your boss never hears about it.

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