ILLINOIS · ELECTRICIAN · UPDATED FROM FEDERAL RECORDS
How to become an electrician in Illinois: get paid to train.
You don't pay tuition to get into this trade here. You join an apprenticeship: a real job where the training is the work and your pay rises on a published schedule. Illinois has 76 of these programs, with 5,200 people in them at the last federal count. This page is how you find yours.
01 THE PAY
How much do electrician apprentices make in Illinois?
The median starting wage was $21.52 an hour: half of 4,446 recent starting records were above it, half below. Separately, people who completed recently left with a median recorded wage of $51.00 an hour. Those are different groups of apprentices, not the same people tracked from start to finish. The middle half of starting wages fell between $20.00 and $23.10.
The middle of 4,446 recent starting wages across 58 programs. The middle half: $20.00 to $23.10. About $860 for a 40-hour week, our arithmetic, hourly times forty.
The IBEW Local 134 apprenticeship starts with eleven weeks of full-time class, unpaid, before your first job assignment. Then the work pays 40% of a finished electrician's rate ($25.26) and rises on a published schedule to 90% ($56.84). Their sheet says rates may change with the industry's needs.
The rate the State of Illinois sets for electricians on public works in Cook County. One county's rate for one kind of work, not anyone's starting offer, and not independent of the largest program: the union scale is what the county rate reflects.
02 HOW TO APPLY
How to apply, and how long it takes
No experience needed. You apply the way you'd apply to a job, because it is one: you go through their selection process, an aptitude test plus an experience form, and the people they select train on real work. At the largest program open to outside applicants, you need to be 17 or older when you register, have a diploma or GED, and show a year of high-school algebra with a C or better. A GED math certificate doesn't cover the algebra; an online tech-math certificate from skillsprep.org does.
Finishing takes five years. Local 134 covers schooling through an industry scholarship loan you pay off by working for its contractors. Out of pocket: a $50 registration fee, a $500 processing fee if you're selected, and a one-time administrative fee set when school begins.
Many of the larger programs are joint training committees the electricians' union runs with its contractors; JATC stands for Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee. Companies run the smaller ones and train their own hires. Pick two or three programs near you from the list, search each name with its city, and ask how they take applications.
Local 134 registers applicants in person on Wednesdays, 9 to 11 am, at the school in Alsip. This cycle runs through February 2027, for the March 2027 test and the July and October 2027 classes. Their site posts the schedule; check it before you go.
In person at the school in Alsip, with your documents and the $50 fee. You leave with an application to complete.
Return the application, get a study guide and a test date. Selection weighs the aptitude test and your experience form. No sponsor needed.
By email, within eight weeks of testing. If selected: a physical, a drug screen, and a background check.
Eleven weeks of full-time class, then assignment to one of about 600 union contractors.
03 THE PROGRAMS
Every registered electrician apprenticeship in Illinois
All 76 programs, ranked by each sponsor's total apprentices at the latest federal count. The bar shows that total. For the 16 sponsors that train more than one trade, the count includes apprentices in their other trades as well. Ranks cover all 76 programs. Prison-run programs keep their overall rank but are listed separately below. A zero means no apprentices were recorded in training in this dataset; it does not necessarily mean the program has closed.
Programs that take on classes of apprentices
Smaller and single-company programs
SHOW ALL 44 SMALLER PROGRAMS
Run inside state prisons
9 of the 76 programs are run by Illinois Correctional Industries inside the facilities named below, and train people who are incarcerated there. They're part of the state's count, but you cannot apply to them from outside, and none of the wage numbers above include them.
04 LICENSING
Licensing depends on where you work
Illinois has no statewide electrician license. Cities and counties issue their own, each with its own rules, and they change across a city line. Before you count on your hours, check the rules where you plan to work.
How electrician licensing works in Illinois05 SOURCES
- U.S. Department of Labor national apprenticeship data, extract of August 17, 2026. Every program, every count, and the two medians and the starting-wage band on this page.
- Illinois Department of Labor, prevailing wage rates for Cook County, posted August 15, 2026, labor.illinois.gov. The public-jobs rate.
- EJATT Electrical Apprenticeship Program sheet, June 2026 edition, and EJATT registration information and FAQ, ejatt.com, accessed 2026-08-31. The wage scale, the eleven weeks of unpaid class, the fees, and the requirements on this page.
- 20 Illinois 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.