Where are the trades booming?
Pick a state and compare four trades on pay, market size, and competition — built from official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage and employment data. Drag the sliders to weight what matters to you.
What matters most to you?
Move the sliders to change the rankings.
Total: 85%. We will balance it for you.
Fiber / Telecom
BLS: Telecommunications Line Installers and Repairers (SOC 49-9052)
Electrician
BLS: Electricians (SOC 47-2111)
Plumber
BLS: Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152)
HVAC Technician
BLS: Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers (SOC 49-9021)
How the scores work.Each sub-score is a percentile rank (0–100) of this state's raw BLS figure against all 50 states and DC for the same trade. Pay uses the annual median wage. Market size uses total state employment in the occupation. Low competition is the inverse rank of workers per 1,000 jobs — fewer workers per 1,000 scores higher, but note this can also indicate a smaller local market. The headline number is a weighted blend using the sliders above. Scores are relative rankings between states, calculated by TradeToolz — they are not BLS measures.
Source. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2024 state estimates, retrieved 2026-06-10. Raw figures (median wage, employment, jobs per 1,000) are shown unmodified from bls.gov. BLS data are in the public domain; BLS does not endorse this site or its scoring method.
Disclaimer.This is a free educational comparison, not career, financial, or legal advice. Wages and employment vary widely within a state by metro area, specialty, and experience. State estimates are point-in-time survey data and carry sampling error. Licensing and certification requirements differ by state — verify with your state licensing board. Some figures are suppressed by BLS for small samples and shown as "n/a".