How much do electricians make in Indiana in 2026?

The median electrician in Indiana earns $68,490 a year, which works out to $32.93 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That number sits in the middle of a wide range — entry-level and newer journeymen tend to land around $50,000 ($24.04/hr), while experienced hands at the 75th percentile pull in $91,290 ($43.89/hr). All figures come from BLS OEWS May 2025.

That $41,290 spread between the 25th and 75th percentile is worth paying attention to. It tells you that what you earn as an Indiana electrician is not locked in by geography alone — it shifts significantly based on your years in the trade, the type of work you do, and who you work for.

Entry-level electricians and apprentices earning near $50,000 ($24.04/hr) are typically in the first few years of a five-year apprenticeship or have recently earned their journeyman card. At this stage, your wage grows predictably with each year of documented hours. Once you hit journeyman status and start accumulating specialty skills — service work, industrial controls, low-voltage systems, or high-voltage transmission — the gap between you and the median starts to close fast.

The median of $68,490 ($32.93/hr) is a realistic target for a fully licensed journeyman electrician with a few years of post-card experience in Indiana. Residential work, commercial construction, and maintenance roles all land in this range for mid-career electricians. Industrial work, especially in manufacturing-heavy areas of the state like the northwest corridor around Hammond and Gary or the auto-adjacent plants in central Indiana, tends to push wages higher.

Electricians at the 75th percentile — earning $91,290 ($43.89/hr) — are typically master electricians, foremen, or specialists in industrial or high-voltage work. Estimating and project management responsibilities also show up at this pay level. If you're running a crew, signing off on permits, or working in a sector like data centers or large-scale industrial maintenance, this end of the range is achievable.

Geography inside Indiana does matter. The Indianapolis metro area, Fort Wayne, and the Lake County industrial belt near Chicago all have higher concentrations of commercial and industrial electrical work. Rural and smaller markets tend to favor residential and light commercial projects, where wages often track closer to the median or below.

Overtime is a real factor in annual take-home pay for Indiana electricians. Many commercial and industrial jobs run heavy overtime during project push phases. An electrician at the median hourly rate of $32.93 working 200 hours of overtime at time-and-a-half adds roughly $9,879 to their annual earnings — enough to move a mid-range earner meaningfully closer to the 75th percentile on a gross basis.

No union scale data was available for this trade and state at the time of publication. Where union locals do set scale in Indiana, wages for journeymen tend to be highly structured and often include benefits — health coverage, pension contributions, and paid training hours — that add significant value beyond the base hourly rate.

If you're an apprentice, the clearest path to higher wages is finishing your hours, passing your journeyman exam, and picking up specialty certifications — arc flash, OSHA 30, low-voltage, or industrial controls — that employers will pay more to have on their crews. If you're already a journeyman, moving into master electrician status or a foreman role is the most direct lever for getting to the top quartile in Indiana.