How much do rebar workers make in Virginia in 2026?

The median rebar worker in Virginia earns $55,120 a year, which works out to roughly $26.50 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That figure sits in the middle of a range that spans from $47,270 (~$22.73/hr) at the 25th percentile up to $62,440 (~$30.02/hr) at the 75th percentile. These numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025.

That $15,170 gap between the bottom and top quartiles tells you a lot about how this trade works. New ironworkers and rebar hands coming off their first few jobs tend to cluster around that $47,270 mark. Workers with several years in — crew leads, foremen in training, or hands who've built a reputation on large commercial and highway jobs — push toward and past $62,440.

Rebar work in Virginia runs the full spectrum of project types. Northern Virginia and the Washington D.C. suburbs generate steady demand from federal construction, data center builds, and major highway infrastructure projects along I-66, I-95, and the Dulles corridor. Richmond and its surrounding counties see consistent hospital, university, and commercial mixed-use construction that keeps rebar crews employed. Hampton Roads draws infrastructure work tied to military installations, port expansion at the Port of Virginia, and coastal resilience projects. Workers willing to follow the work across the state can put together longer seasons and higher annual totals than those tied to a single metro area.

Overtime is a real factor in annual earnings. Rebar is deadline-sensitive — concrete pours wait for no one, and contractors push crews hard to meet pour schedules. A worker at the median hourly rate of $26.50 who picks up 200 overtime hours in a year at time-and-a-half adds roughly $7,950 to their take-home before taxes. That can move a median earner's annual total well above the 75th-percentile figure. Seasonality is less severe in Virginia than in northern states, but winter weather does slow outdoor concrete work, particularly in the mountains and Shenandoah Valley.

Entry into rebar work in Virginia typically happens through an apprenticeship program or by hiring on directly with a reinforcing steel contractor as a helper. Apprenticeships generally run three to four years and combine on-the-job hours with classroom instruction covering blueprint reading, tying and placing techniques, bending schedules, and safety. Workers who complete a formal apprenticeship come out with documented skills that support higher starting wages on union and non-union sites alike. Some workers may be covered by a collective bargaining agreement — check with your local for current rates.

Raising your pay as a rebar hand comes down to a few concrete moves. Picking up certification in post-tensioning or epoxy-coated rebar systems makes you more valuable on specific project types and harder to replace. Foreman experience — managing a crew of four to eight ironworkers, coordinating with concrete subs, and reading structural drawings — is the clearest path to pushing past $62,440. Workers who add rigging and signaling credentials can also pick up higher-rate hours on lift-and-set work that overlaps with rebar placement on precast jobs.

Keep in mind that BLS wage data captures base hourly and salary figures reported by employers. It does not include overtime premium pay, per diem allowances for travel work, or employer contributions to health and retirement benefits. Your actual annual compensation package can be meaningfully higher than what the percentile figures alone show, particularly on larger commercial or infrastructure jobs where full benefit packages are standard.

For Virginia rebar workers, the path from the 25th to the 75th percentile — a $15,170 annual jump — is achievable in three to five years for someone who stays active in the trade, pursues apprenticeship completion, and positions themselves for crew-lead responsibilities.