How much does an electrical foreman make?

An electrical foreman on a union inside agreement makes 10% to 15% over the journeyman rate, and a general foreman 20% to 30% over, on wage sheets dated Dec 2025 to Oct 2026. On BLS data (May 2025), construction supervisors at electrical contractors had a median of $44.95 an hour ($93,500 a year). A foreman paid by the hour is owed overtime after 40 hours in a week.

01Foreman pay on union wage sheets

Union agreements set the foreman rate as a multiple of the journeyman wage, so the bump is written down.

Sources: wage sheets for Local 46, Local 11, Local 440 and Local 340. Hourly wage only.

Every one of these bumps rides on the journeyman rate, so start with what journeymen make in your area.

Local 340 ties the bump to the size of the job. A foreman with 6 or fewer hands gets 110% of journeyman scale; with 7 or more, 115%. A general foreman over 4 or fewer foremen gets 125%; over 5 or more, 130%.

The fringes (health, pension, annuity) are mostly flat cents per hour on these sheets, so the foreman bump shows up mainly in the wage. Local 46's foreperson package is $123.03 against $114.95 for a journeyman, an $8.08 difference on a $7.79 wage bump (our math).

All four of these are California and Washington locals, which post their sheets online. Ratios elsewhere may differ, so check your local's sheet. How to read a union wage sheet explains each line.

02What the foreman bump is worth in a year

On union scale, the foreman bump is worth about $13,000 to $21,000 a year in straight time, and the GF bump about twice that.

Our math at 2,080 straight-time hours:

Overtime makes it bigger, because OT is paid on the higher rate. At Local 340, a foreman's time-and-a-half rate is $88.61 against $80.55 for a journeyman.

03What BLS says supervisors make

BLS counts construction foremen whose main job is supervising as "first-line supervisors of construction trades." The ones working for electrical contractors earned a median of $44.95 an hour in May 2025.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025, national industry-specific estimates, occupations 47-1011 and 47-2111 (series via the BLS OEWS bulk files). Hourly straight time.

That's 79,660 supervisors at electrical contractors, with a median yearly wage of $93,500 against $61,570 for electricians at the same kind of employer.

Don't read the gap as the foreman bump. Two reasons:

• The electrician number includes apprentices. Under federal coding rules, apprentices are classified with the occupation they're training for, while workers whose primary duty is supervising go in the supervisor group (SOC 2018 User Guide). So the gap compares supervisors to everyone from first-year apprentices up.
• The supervisor number includes general foremen and others who mainly supervise. A working foreman who's on the tools most of the day may be counted as an electrician, not a supervisor.

The 1.52 ratio between the two medians (our math) is the gap between running work and the whole trade, not between you today and you with a crew.

04Open-shop foremen: no sheet, so check ads

Open shops don't publish a foreman ratio. The rate is whatever you and the shop agree to.

A dated example: an electrician foreman ad in Greenville, Mississippi, posted Oct 19, 2026 by an industrial contractor, lists $45 an hour, $700 a week per diem and about a year of work. The ad asks the foreman to plan crews, equipment and material, keep time sheets and daily reports, and run toolbox talks.

For context, Mississippi's median electrician wage was $29.26 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS). And on the same job board the same day, ads for licensed hands ran from $35 an hour (a night-shift commercial remodel in Saginaw, Michigan) to $55 (a power plant in Utah). The $45 foreman rate isn't far above good travel journeyman money. Run the whole check before you take one.

Our math on that foreman ad, if the job runs 50-hour weeks: 40 x $45 = $1,800, plus 10 x $67.50 = $675, plus $700 per diem, for $3,175 a week. The ad doesn't list hours, so ask.

One national electrical contractor told us what the top of their scale buys: someone at $58 an hour "better be very experienced and I should just be able to point and say, hey, go do it." That's the bar for a top journeyman. A foreman gets paid for going further: running the crew, the material and the schedule so the PM doesn't have to.

A simple rule from the union sheets: ask for at least 10% over your own journeyman rate to run a crew, and more for a bigger crew or a GF spot. If the shop won't put the bump in your rate, ask how it's paid instead (a truck, a weekly bump, a bonus at the end of the job) and get the number.

05Do electrical foremen get overtime?

If you're paid hourly, yes: federal law requires time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek. A working foreman whose main job is electrical work is owed overtime even on a salary.

The federal overtime rules have an exemption for executives, but it takes more than a title. Among other tests, the job has to pay a salary of at least $684 a week and the primary duty has to be managing (DOL Fact Sheet #17A). The same fact sheet says employees in "production, maintenance, construction and similar occupations" are not exempt "no matter how highly paid they might be."

The regulation names electricians by trade. It says electricians are among the blue-collar workers who are entitled to overtime (29 CFR 541.3). And it speaks to working foremen directly:

"Similarly, an employee whose primary duty is to work as an electrician is not an exempt executive even if the employee also directs the work of other employees on the job site, orders parts and materials for the job, and handles requests from the prime contractor." (29 CFR 541.106)

So a foreman who's on the tools, running a crew and dealing with the GC is still owed overtime. A general foreman or superintendent whose primary duty is managing, paid a salary, may be exempt. It turns on what you actually do all day, not your title.

Why it matters, as an example. Say a shop offers you $1,900 a week salary to run work, and you put in 55-hour weeks. That's $34.55 an hour (our math). If you'd be $40 an hour as a non-exempt foreman, the same 55 hours is 40 x $40 plus 15 x $60, or $2,500. The salary costs you $600 a week.

State law can add more; federal law is the floor. If you think you're owed overtime, the DOL Wage and Hour Division is the place to ask. More on your rights in electrician rights on the job.

06Is the bump worth it?

On the union sheets above, the foreman bump is $5 to $10 an hour. Whether that's worth it depends on what comes with it.

Before you say yes, get answers to four questions:

1. What's the rate, and will it show on your paystub? Not "we'll take care of you."
2. Hourly or salary? If salary, see the overtime section above.
3. Who's on the crew, and do you have a say? Running green hands on a tight schedule is a different job.
4. Is there a next job? A foreman spot that ends with the phase is a short raise.

If you want the job and not just the number, how to become an electrical foreman covers getting there and the first weeks. If you're comparing a union foreman rate to an open-shop offer, union vs non-union electrician pay shows how to add up the full package both ways.

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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