COLORADO · ELECTRICIAN · UPDATED FROM FEDERAL RECORDS
How to become an electrician in Colorado: get paid to train.
You don't need experience to start this trade, and you don't have to wait for a hiring window: the largest training program in the state enrolls new students every summer, with or without an employer. Colorado has 57 registered electrician apprenticeships, with 5,819 people in training at the latest federal count. This page shows you how applying works and where every program is.
01 THE PAY
How much do electrician apprentices make in Colorado?
The median starting wage was $20.68 an hour across 4,051 recent starting records: half were above it and half were below. Separately, recent completers had a median recorded wage of $32.13 an hour. These are different groups of apprentices, not the same people tracked from start to finish. The middle half of starting wages fell between $18.00 and $23.00 an hour.
The median across 4,051 recent starting records from 39 programs. The middle half earned between $18.00 and $23.00 an hour. At 40 hours a week, $20.68 works out to about $830 before taxes.
The Denver electrical committee publishes its wages in dollars. Apprentices start at $22.70 an hour and finish at $37.01, with periodic raises tied to the pay period you have reached. The journeyman rate behind those steps is $49.35 an hour. You work a standard forty-hour week for a contractor the committee assigns you to, with evening classes on top.
Apprentices at the Pueblo electrical committee start at 50% of the journeyman scale, with periodic raises as you advance. The journeyman wage it publishes is $31.90 an hour, and the Denver committee publishes $49.35 for the same license. The dollar amount a percentage works out to depends on the journeyman rate each committee uses.
02 HOW TO APPLY
How to apply, and how long it takes
No experience needed. At the Denver committee, the largest union program, you email your documents first: a current driver's license, a second ID, and a diploma or transcript that states your graduation date. Approval takes up to a week, then you complete the online application with its $35 non-refundable fee and take a five-part aptitude test: paper folding, numerical computation, numerical reasoning, reading comprehension, and mechanical reasoning.
The largest program is a school, not a committee. The electrical contractor association's school, the largest electrician program in the state's federal count, takes students with or without an employer. If you are not working for a contractor yet, you can register on your own, and the school runs a hire list, a job board, and career fairs with a network it puts at more than 200 member contractors. Classes meet once a week from 5:30 to 9:30 pm, and open enrollment for new students runs mid-June through mid-July each year for classes starting in August. Tuition runs $600 to $1,000 a semester plus $450 to $650 a year for books, and the school says many contractors reimburse up to 100% of it.
Colorado registers apprentices by law. Anyone working in the electrical trade without a Colorado license counts as an apprentice, and apprentices must be registered with the State Electrical Board. Your employer files the registration within 30 days of hire, and you carry the registration card while working. Register on time. The state says registration is what makes your hours count toward the license, and the Denver committee credits prior experience only if you were registered when you earned it. Pick two or three programs near you, search each program's name with its city, and check how and when they accept applications.
The Denver committee takes applications twice a year: this round closes on September 30, 2026, and applications reopen on February 1, 2027. The contractor association school in the Denver area enrolls mid-June through mid-July for August classes, and its late-start round for first-year students is open right now: registration closes September 18, 2026, or when all seats are full, and classes begin the week of October 5. The Colorado Springs committee is closed and reopens January 1, 2027, its contractor school counterpart is already registering for an August 2027 start, and the Pueblo committee posts no deadline at all. If a date above has passed when you read this, each program posts its next dates on its own site.
Everything goes in one email: a current and valid driver's license, since ID cards and instruction permits are not accepted, a second ID such as a Social Security card, birth certificate, or passport, and your diploma or a transcript that clearly states your graduation date. Allow up to a week for review. If you cannot show an algebra credit, the committee accepts a self-paced online Tech Math course instead.
Once your documents are approved you complete the online application and pay the $35 fee, then take the aptitude test, which is offered the second, third, and fourth Fridays of every month. A study guide for the test is sold for $20.
A ranking high enough to meet selection requirements triggers a background check. A felony conviction in the past seven years is assessed individually by the committee, not treated as an automatic bar, and an applicant the committee finds unsuitable gets 10 days to show the exclusion should not apply. The pre-employment drug test screens for marijuana, and so does any later testing.
The program runs four years: a standard forty-hour week with a contractor the committee assigns you to, and evening classes twice a week with the occasional Saturday. Finishing the program requires earning your journeyman license, so the state exam is built into the path rather than left for later.
03 THE PROGRAMS
Every registered electrician apprenticeship in Colorado
All 57 programs, ranked by each sponsor's total apprentices at the latest federal count. The bar shows that total. For the 3 sponsors that train more than one trade, the count includes apprentices in their other trades as well. Ranks cover all 57 programs. A zero means no apprentices were recorded in training in this dataset; it does not necessarily mean the program has closed.
The biggest programs
Smaller and single-company programs
SHOW ALL 39 SMALLER PROGRAMS
04 LICENSING
Colorado licenses you in your own name
Colorado licenses electricians at the state level and only at the state level: by statute, electrical licensing is a matter of statewide concern, and cities cannot issue their own. The State Electrical Board licenses residential wiremen at 4,000 hours and journeyman electricians at 8,000 hours earned over at least four years, plus 288 classroom hours. The licensing page lays out who issues what, the exams, and the fees, with a source for each.
How electrician licensing works in Colorado05 SOURCES
- U.S. Department of Labor national apprenticeship data, extract of August 17, 2026. Every program, every count, the two state medians and the starting-wage band on this page.
- Denver Electrical JATC program, application, FAQ, and resources pages, djeatc68.com, accessed 2026-09-04. The wage figures, the $35 fee, the test, the checks, and the September and February dates on this page.
- Colorado Springs Electrical JATC application pages, csejatc.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The January reopening on this page.
- Pueblo Electrical JATC program and application pages, pueblojatc.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The 50% figure and the $31.90 journeyman rate on this page.
- IECRM FAQ and apprenticeship program pages, iecrm.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The school model, the class schedule, the tuition range, the enrollment rule, and the September and October late-start dates on this page.
- IEC Southern Colorado registration page, iecscc.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The August 2027 registration note on this page.
- Colorado State Electrical Board apprentice and application pages, dpo.colorado.gov, and the state's apprenticeship information guide dated October 2025, accessed 2026-09-04. The registration law, the license hours, and the classroom requirement on this page.
- 10 Colorado filings in the source data name a different state inside their own registration numbers. They are under review, and no figure on this page counts them.
EVERY FIGURE ON THIS PAGE IS FROM U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR NATIONAL APPRENTICESHIP DATA, EXTRACT OF AUGUST 17, 2026, EXCEPT THE SOURCE-MARKED RATES IN THE MONEY SECTION.