Every week, thousands of craft professionals across the U.S. join the Skillit platform to connect with the nation’s best and biggest general and specialty trade contractors. This generates millions of proprietary data points which we anonymize and structure into labor intelligence to help decision-makers gain a competitive edge in a tight labor market.

Key Findings

As of October 31st 2024, craft professionals in Dallas are:

• Paid slightly below the national average across most trades.

• Generally less willing to accept lower pay for the right job compared to the national average.

• Primarily employed by companies like TDIndustries, Bechtel and Contex.

• Scoring slightly higher on skills assessments than their national peers.

• More likely to have work authorization compared to the national average across all trades.

• Less likely to be female than their national peers across most trades except HEOs, welders and pipefitters.

• More likely to speak Spanish than their national peers.

• Responding faster to recruiter outreach, averaging 2 days vs. 2.7 days nationally.

• Less likely to be union members, except for drywallers and welders.

• Showing strong interest in relocating, especially pipefitters and pipelayers with 53% willing to move to Dallas.

• Falling slightly below the national average in OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 certification rates but well above their national peers for OSHA 40 and OSHA 62.

Current craft pay in Dallas

Dallas craft professionals typically earn slightly below the national average.

Craft pay expectations in Dallas

Craft professionals in Dallas tend to desire slightly higher total wages compared to the national average. Compared to their national peers however, the delta between their current and desired pay is consistently less aspirational than their national counterparts.

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Craft compensation flexibility in Dallas

Dallas craft professionals are generally less willing to accept lower pay for the right job compared to the national average, with up to 18% of laborers and welders showing this preference.

Non-financial compensation trends

The most significant motivations for craft professionals in Dallas are benefits, training/upskilling and career mobility, while women-friendly environments rank lower in importance across all trades.

Meet Dallas’s biggest employers of craft professionals

Our data reveals that TDIndustries is the most prominent employer in Dallas with over 100 carpenters, electricians, concrete workers, heavy equipment operators, drywallers, plumbers, welders, pipefitters and pipelayers citing it as a past or current employer.

Skill, Experience & Certifications

Craft professionals in Dallas have very similar skills assessment scores to their peers nationally despite having on average 1 year less of construction experience.

Work authorization

Craft professionals in Dallas have slightly higher work authorization rates compared to the national average across all trades with the exception of carpenters, HEOs and drywallers.

Gender and language

Dallas has lower than average female representation among craft professionals. In the second chart, we see that a higher percentage of craft professionals in Dallas, across most trades, prefer Spanish as their primary language. This likely reflects the high proportion of Hispanic workers in the construction industry in Dallas, particularly due to the city’s proximity to Mexico and its large Hispanic population (42%).

Contactability and communication

Dallas craft professionals respond faster to recruiter outreach, averaging just 2 days compared to the national average of 2.7 days. Recruiters in Dallas also need fewer outreach attempts, especially through phone and email to successfully connect with them. Despite this, the connection rate between recruiters and craft professionals in Dallas (57%) is close to the national average (53%).

Union membership

Overall, union membership is lower in Dallas across most trades with the exception of drywallers and welders.

One-way commute distance

Craft professionals in Dallas have a significantly longer one-way commute compared to the national average.

Migration

Our migration insights show that a higher-than-average number of craft professionals are willing to relocate to Dallas, with 49% of professionals on average expressing interest and stating they would be willing to travel an average distance of 497 miles. Most craft professionals interested in relocating come from Texas (58%), followed by Florida 18%) and Georgia (10%).

Additionally, trades such as HEOs and plumbers have a significantly larger external talent pool, with HEOs being 1.87x and plumbers being 1.85x more likely to relocate compared to the local Dallas workforce.

OSHA

Dallas has significantly higher OSHA 40 and OSHA 62 certification rates compared to their national peers. However, Dallas’s OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 certification rates are lower than national averages.

Skillit’s craft labor database growth

Dallas experienced strong monthly growth from September to October 2024, with a notable increase of 11%. While this growth is impressive, Dallas trailed behind San Antonio and Atlanta.

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Our methodology

All data included in this report is as of August 30, 2024 and based on the anonymized data from over 20,000 Skillit member profiles located in, or interested in relocating to, Dallas and 12 months of communications between employers and craft professionals aggregated across the Skillit platform.