How much do drywall installers make in Washington in 2026?

The median drywall installer in Washington earns $73,130 per year, which works out to roughly $35.16 per hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That number sits in the middle of the pack — half of installers in the state earn more, half earn less. If you're just starting out or working in a slower market, the 25th percentile is $62,720 annually, or about $30.15 per hour. Experienced installers, crew leads, and those working on larger commercial jobs push into the 75th percentile at $100,780 per year — roughly $48.45 per hour. That's a spread of more than $38,000 between the bottom quarter and the top quarter of earners, which tells you this trade has real upside if you develop the right skills and land the right jobs.

Washington is one of the stronger states for construction wages overall, and drywall is no exception. The Seattle metro area in particular drives up compensation at the higher end of the scale. Demand for finish and commercial work in dense urban corridors — downtown Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond, and the surrounding Eastside — keeps crews busy and gives installers leverage to negotiate better rates. Residential booms in Tacoma, Spokane, and the Tri-Cities have also pushed steady work into those markets, though wages there tend to track closer to the median than to the 75th percentile.

Several factors separate a $30-per-hour installer from a $48-per-hour installer in this state. Speed and accuracy on large commercial boards matters — a framer who can also hang and tape efficiently is worth more to a general contractor than someone who does one or the other. Specialty work adds significant pay: metal framing, fire-rated assemblies, sound-dampening systems, and level-5 finish work all command premium rates because fewer people do them well. Installers who can read blueprints and coordinate with other trades reduce a foreman's headaches, and that gets reflected in what they're offered.

Hours matter too. A full-time drywall installer running 2,080 hours a year at the median rate hits $73,130, but many in this trade work overtime on deadline-driven commercial projects. Even modest overtime — say 200 additional hours at time-and-a-half — can push a median-wage installer's annual take-home well above $80,000.

No union scale data was available for drywall installers in Washington at the time of publication. Where union contracts do apply in the region, wages and benefits packages can differ meaningfully from the figures above, so it's worth checking with the local finishing trades union if that path interests you.

The figures on this page come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025. BLS collects this data from employer payroll records across Washington, making it one of the most reliable benchmarks available for trades pay in the state. These are base wage figures — they do not include overtime, per diem, health benefits, pension contributions, or other compensation that may be part of a total package.

Use the percentile breakdown as a calibration tool. If you've got five or more years of hang-and-finish experience in Washington and you're still sitting at $30 per hour, that's a signal worth paying attention to. The top quarter of earners in this state are pulling nearly $49 per hour, and the gap between where you are and where they are is usually explained by specialty skills, job type, and who you're working for — all things that can be changed.