NORTH CAROLINA · ELECTRICIAN · UPDATED FROM FEDERAL RECORDS
How to become an electrician in North Carolina: get paid to train.
You don't need experience to start this trade, and the largest program open to outside applicants publishes its full pay scale and interviews qualified applicants in the order their applications are completed, so an early, complete file is the advantage. North Carolina has 87 registered electrician apprenticeships, with 3,032 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 North Carolina?
The median starting wage was $15.09 an hour across 1,964 recent starting records: half were above it and half were below. Separately, recent completers had a median recorded wage of $24.00 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 $14.00 and $18.44 an hour.
The median across 1,964 recent starting records from 63 programs. The middle half earned between $14.00 and $18.44 an hour. At 40 hours a week, $15.09 works out to about $600 before taxes.
The Charlotte electricians' committee publishes its apprentice wage scale as percentages of the journeyman rate. A first-step apprentice earns 60% of the $33.83 journeyman rate, or $20.30 an hour, and the published steps rise to 85%. These are the latest rates published by the committee. Apprentice wages are set under the collective bargaining agreement.
ABC of the Carolinas, the contractor association whose member companies employ its apprentices, registers a standard scale with the state: $14.00 an hour to start, stepping up each 1,000 hours to $20.00 against a $24.00 journeyworker rate. Employers in the program may register their own scale instead, and the signed standards state that classroom hours are unpaid.
02 HOW TO APPLY
How to apply, and how long it takes
No experience needed. At the largest program open to outside applicants, the Charlotte electricians' committee, you must be 18 and submit an official transcript or GED showing a grade of C or better in Algebra 1, or show 4,000 hours of electrical construction experience instead. You need a valid driver's license and your Social Security card, and every applicant takes the NJATC aptitude test. A felony conviction will not automatically disqualify you.
Finishing takes four years. The Charlotte apprenticeship requires 8,000 hours on the job plus classroom instruction held one day a week from 1 to 6 pm, with some Saturdays. The classes run in the daytime, not at night. You buy your own work clothes, work shoes, textbooks, and tools.
The largest sponsors are contractor associations, union-contractor committees, and community colleges. The largest sponsor on the list, the Fort Bragg education center, serves only active-duty soldiers stationed there in apprenticeships tied to their military jobs, so you cannot apply from outside. ABC of the Carolinas and the state's electrical contractor associations train employees of their member companies. The union committees in Charlotte and Durham run apprenticeships with participating contractors, while community colleges provide the classroom instruction for programs across the state. Pick two or three programs near you, search each program's name with its city, and check how and when they accept applications.
The Charlotte committee accepts applications continuously against a yearly cutoff: it is taking applications for its August 2027 class with a deadline of March 31, 2027, and applications received after a deadline roll to the following school year. ABC's enrollment window ran from early May to mid-July for its 2026 class, its 2027 dates are not yet posted, and you need a job with a member contractor before you enroll. If the union program fits you, complete your file early: interviews run in the order applications are finished.
The Charlotte committee's application is a printed form: you mail the original with your official transcripts or GED scores, and photocopies are not accepted. An application without its documents is not processed.
Every applicant is required to take the NJATC aptitude test. The committee's site points applicants at prep courses for it, and it does not publish the test's fee or passing score.
Interviews for qualified applicants are conducted in the order applications are completed, so finishing your file early moves you up. A selection may be conditioned on a physical exam, a drug test, or a background check before you sign.
You're placed with the committee's signatory contractors for the on-the-job hours, with employer-paid health and pension contributions after a probationary period. There are no paid holidays: when you work, you get paid. Finishing requires passing the industry's craft certification exam.
03 THE PROGRAMS
Every registered electrician apprenticeship in North Carolina
All 87 programs, ranked by each sponsor's total apprentices at the latest federal count. The bar shows that total. For the 13 sponsors that train more than one trade, the count includes apprentices in their other trades as well. Ranks cover all 87 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 52 SMALLER PROGRAMS
04 LICENSING
North Carolina licenses the business, not the worker
North Carolina issues no state license to an individual electrician: working as an employee of a licensed contractor, you need none. The license belongs to the electrical contracting business, and the way an individual figures in is by passing the state exam to become the qualified individual a business lists on its license. The licensing page lays out who issues what, the exams, and the fees, with a source for each.
How electrician licensing works in North Carolina05 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.
- Charlotte Electrical JATC wage scale, application, and program pages, carolinaseti.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The published scale (effective January 1 to August 31, 2026), the entry requirements, the first-come interview order, and the class day on this page.
- ABC of the Carolinas apprenticeship pages and registered standards (RA-000928, signed January 28, 2026), abccarolinas.org, accessed 2026-09-04. The registered scale, the rule that an employer enrolls you, and the enrollment window on this page.
- ApprenticeshipNC pages, nccommunitycolleges.edu, accessed 2026-09-04. The Fort Bragg eligibility and the community-college role on this page.
- 12 North Carolina 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.