ILLINOIS · PLUMBER · UPDATED FROM FEDERAL RECORDS
How to become a plumber 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 36 of these programs, with 2,669 people in them at the last federal count. This page is how you find yours.
01 THE PAY
How much do plumber apprentices make in Illinois?
The median starting wage was $19.90 an hour: half of 1,392 recent starting records were above it, half below. Separately, people who completed recently left with a median recorded wage of $52.80 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 $18.65 and $21.88.
Illinois's plumber wage records in the federal file are heavily concentrated in one program. The Plumbers' Joint Apprenticeship Committee Local 130 in Chicago accounts for 62.6% of the wage records behind these medians, so the figures mostly describe its apprentices.
The middle of 1,392 recent starting wages across 19 programs. The middle half: $18.65 to $21.88. About $800 for a 40-hour week, our arithmetic, hourly times forty.
Local 130's committee publishes its scale: $20.55 an hour for your first six months, then $22.40, $26.60 in year two, $30.25 in year three, $39.95 in year four, $45.40 in year five. Journeymen on the same sheet earn $60.50.
The rate the State of Illinois sets for plumbers 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 going in: the requirements are documents, not years on tools. At the largest program open to outside applicants, you need to be 18 by the time you're registered (17-year-olds can apply), hold a valid driver's license, and show a diploma, transcripts, a GED, or a veteran's DD214.
Finishing takes five years. The application fee is $50, and their page says it plainly: there are no exceptions to the requirements.
The smaller programs are companies training their own hires. For those, search the name with its city and ask.
Local 130 takes applications online only, in windows. The next one opens at apply.jac130.org in November 2026.
During an open window at apply.jac130.org, with your documents and the $50 fee.
They email you when and where to take the aptitude test.
If invited to pre-orientation: a drug screen, a physical exam, and an agility test.
Registered with the committee, with a valid license and reliable transportation in hand. The program runs five years.
03 THE PROGRAMS
Every registered plumber apprenticeship in Illinois
All 36 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 36 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 13 SMALLER PROGRAMS
Run inside state prisons
9 of the 36 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 licenses plumbers at the state level: you need a license in your own name to do this work here, whoever you work for. The licensing page lays out who issues it, the exams, and the fees, with a source for each.
How plumber 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.
- Plumbers Local 130 UA, PCA wage rate sheet, effective 2025-06-01 to 2026-05-31, and Plumbers Local 130 UA, apprenticeship page, plumberslu130ua.com, accessed 2026-09-02. The wage scale, the application window, 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.