How much do power-line workers make in Arizona in 2026?

The median power-line worker in Arizona earns $75,420 a year, which works out to roughly $36.26 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That's the midpoint — half the state's line workers earn more, half earn less. If you're just starting out or working in a lower-cost region of the state, expect to land closer to the 25th percentile at $57,800 a year ($27.79/hr). Experienced journeymen with overtime, hazard work, or a specialty ticket can push into the 75th percentile at $100,330 a year ($48.24/hr).

Those numbers come straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025 release. They cover electrical power-line installers and repairers working in Arizona — the people who string, splice, and maintain the high-voltage transmission and distribution lines that keep the grid running.

Arizona's line work landscape runs the full range: dense urban load centers in Phoenix and Tucson, sprawling rural co-op territory across the high desert and strip, and a significant amount of new transmission buildout tied to utility-scale solar and grid interconnection projects. Where you work in the state matters. Phoenix metro tends to concentrate higher-wage utility jobs with large investor-owned utilities. Rural cooperatives and municipal utilities outside the metro often pay at or near the median. Line crews brought in for major transmission or storm-restoration work can log heavy overtime that pushes annual take-home well above the base figures shown here.

Overtime is a real factor in this trade. A journeyman sitting at the $75,420 base who logs 400 hours of overtime in a year — not unusual during peak storm or wildfire-damage seasons — can add $20,000 or more to that annual figure. The BLS wage data reflects straight-time base earnings reported by employers, so it does not fully capture what a busy line worker actually deposits in the bank across a full year.

Advancement moves the needle significantly. Entry-level apprentices typically start below the 25th percentile while they work toward journeyman status. Crossing into journeyman standing, picking up certifications for substation work, underground distribution, or transmission-class voltage, and taking on crew-lead or foreman responsibilities all push pay toward and past the 75th percentile. Specialty skills — transformer work, SCADA systems familiarity, or operating heavy equipment like digger derricks — give employers a reason to pay above the median.

No union scale data was available for this specific trade and state combination at the time of publication. In states and trades where union scale is available, TradesPays lists it separately alongside the BLS figures so you can compare negotiated rates directly.

The $57,800–$100,330 range covers the broad middle of Arizona's power-line workforce. The 25th-to-75th spread of roughly $42,500 a year tells you this is a trade where your experience level, your employer, your location within the state, and how much overtime you're willing to work all have a large impact on what you actually earn. A first-year apprentice in a rural co-op and a ten-year journeyman foreman for a Phoenix-area investor-owned utility are both counted in these numbers — that spread reflects real career trajectory, not noise in the data.

All figures on this page are sourced from BLS OEWS May 2025. Hourly rates are derived by dividing the annual figures by 2,080 hours.