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 August 30th 2024, craft professionals in Houston are:

• Paid slightly above the national average across most trades.

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

• Primarily employed by companies like Zachry Construction, Performance Contractors Inc., and Bechtel Corporation.

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

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

• Represented by a higher percentage of female laborers, with 8% compared to the national average of 2.5%.

• Less likely to be union members, except for carpenters, concrete workers, and pipelayers.

• Responding faster to recruiter outreach, averaging 2 days vs. 3 days nationally.

• Showing strong interest in relocating, especially electricians, laborers, and drywallers, with around 50% willing to move to Houston.

• Falling slightly below the national average in OSHA 30 certification rates, with only a small gap.

Current craft pay in Houston

Houston craft professionals typically earn slightly above the national average. For example, electricians make $28.76/hr on average compared to $27.27/hr nationally while plumbers earn $29.05/hr on average versus $26.53/hr nationwide.

Craft pay expectations in Houston

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

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Craft compensation flexibility in Houston

Houston craft professionals are generally more willing to accept lower pay for the right job compared to the national average, with up to 31% of plumbers, welders, and pipelayers showing this preference.

Non-financial compensation trends

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

Meet Houston’s biggest employers of craft professionals

Our data reveals that Zachry Construction is the most prominent employer in Houston with over 340 electricians, laborers, 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 Houston have slightly lower skills assessment scores than their peers nationally with the exception of pipefitters and pipelayers however have on average an extra year of construction experience.

Work authorization

Craft professionals in Houston have considerably higher work authorization rates compared to the national average across all trades.

Gender and language

Houston has higher than average female representation among craft professionals with a significant spike in female laborers (8%), compared to the national average (2.5%). This could be due to local recruitment efforts aimed at increasing diversity or specific projects in Houston that attract female laborers. In the second chart, we see that a higher percentage of craft professionals in Houston, across most trades, prefer Spanish as their primary language. This likely reflects the high proportion of Hispanic workers in the construction industry in Houston, particularly due to the city’s proximity to Mexico and its large Hispanic population.

Contactability and communication

Houston craft professionals respond faster to recruiter outreach, averaging just 2 days compared to the national average of 3 days. However, recruiters in Houston need more outreach attempts, especially through SMS, to successfully connect with them. Despite this, the connection rate between recruiters and craft professionals in Houston matches the national average at around 50%.

Union membership

Overall, union membership is lower in Houston across most trades with the exception of carpenters, concrete workers and pipelayers.

One-way commute distance

Pipefitters in Houston have the longest one-way commute compared to the national average.

Migration

Our migration insights show that a higher-than-average number of electricians, laborers, and drywallers are willing to relocate to Houston, with around 50% of professionals in these trades expressing interest. Most craft professionals interested in relocating come from Texas (50%), followed by Florida (22%) and Georgia (12%).

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

OSHA

Houston has OSHA 30 certification rates slightly below the national average for most trades, though the gap is small. However, Houston’s OSHA 40 and OSHA 62 certification rates are more variable across trades, with some like laborers and HEOs showing a notable difference compared to national averages.

Skillit’s craft labor database growth

Houston experienced strong monthly growth from July to August 2024, with a notable increase of 8%. While this growth is impressive, Houston trailed behind Dallas, 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, Houston and 12 months of communications between employers and craft professionals aggregated across the Skillit platform.