How much do rebar workers make in California in 2026?

Rebar workers in California earn a median of $63,110 per year, which works out to about $30.34 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That figure sits solidly above the national median for this trade, reflecting California's high construction volume, strong demand for infrastructure work, and the state's elevated cost of doing business.

The spread in pay is wide. Workers at the 25th percentile — those early in their careers or working in slower regional markets — bring in around $48,900 a year, or roughly $23.51 an hour. Get to the 75th percentile, typically through a combination of experience, specialty skills, and working in high-demand metro areas like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or San Jose, and annual pay climbs to $101,020 — about $48.57 an hour. That's more than double the entry-level figure, which tells you experience and location matter enormously in this trade.

Rebar work in California is physically demanding and technically precise. Workers place and tie reinforcing steel bars inside concrete forms for bridges, high-rises, parking structures, tunnels, retaining walls, and highway overpasses. Reading structural drawings, calculating bar spacing, and working safely around concrete pours and heavy equipment are core parts of the job. Workers who can read complex blueprints, operate rebar bending and cutting equipment efficiently, and coordinate with ironworker and concrete crews tend to move up the pay scale faster.

California's geography also plays a role in wage variation. The Bay Area and Los Angeles metro markets consistently support the highest wages in the state due to a high concentration of commercial and civil construction projects, along with the elevated prevailing wage rates that apply on public works jobs. Inland regions like the Central Valley and the High Desert tend to pay closer to the state median or below it, though active infrastructure programs can push local rates higher in any given year.

Prevailing wage law is worth understanding if you work — or plan to work — on state or federally funded projects in California. Under the California Labor Code and the federal Davis-Bacon Act, rebar workers on covered public works projects are entitled to predetermined wage and fringe benefit rates set by the California Department of Industrial Relations. These rates often exceed open-shop market wages, especially for journeymen, and they include fringe benefits like health insurance and pension contributions on top of the base hourly rate. Checking the current DIR prevailing wage determination for your specific county and project type is always worth the few minutes it takes.

Overtime is a regular feature of rebar work during peak construction seasons. California law requires overtime pay at 1.5x after eight hours in a day and after 40 hours in a week, and double time kicks in after 12 hours in a single day. For a worker earning $30.34 an hour, just 10 hours of daily overtime at the 1.5x rate adds meaningfully to weekly take-home pay. Workers who are willing to put in the hours during busy project cycles often end up well above the median on an annual earnings basis.

Entry into the trade most commonly happens through an apprenticeship program sponsored by a union or a contractor association. Apprenticeships typically run two to three years and combine on-the-job training with classroom instruction in blueprint reading, reinforcing steel standards, and safety. Apprentice pay scales start below the journeyman rate and step up incrementally. Completing an apprenticeship and earning journeyman status is the clearest path to the upper end of the pay range shown here.

The numbers on this page come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey, May 2025 release. BLS collects wage data from employer payroll records across the state, making it one of the most reliable sources available for trade wage benchmarking. No union scale data was available for this specific trade and state combination at time of publication.