Top Metro Areas for Electricians in 2026: New York Leads, High-Pay Hubs like Chicago and Portland Follow

Across the top 10 metros for electricians in 2026, LaborCove’s rankings highlight several distinct patterns. All of these metros have median salaries above the national electrician median of $63,190, but they differ substantially in employment counts and Geography Scores. Some metros, such as New York-Newark-Jersey City and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, pair larger employment counts with Geography Scores above 50. Others, like Mount Vernon-Anacortes, Washington, appear in the top 10 with comparatively smaller employment but very high median pay. The Geography Scores make clear that the highest pay alone does not determine a metro’s overall rank. Against the backdrop of a 9.5% projected national employment increase for electricians, these comparisons can help workers see which metros stand out on pay, where larger numbers of electrician jobs are recorded, and how LaborCove’s scoring places each market relative to its peers. Rankings should still be weighed against individual priorities such as personal ties and non-work considerations, which are beyond the scope of this data.

Nationally, electricians earn a median annual salary of $63,190. Every metro in LaborCove’s top 10 has a higher median salary than that benchmark: New York-Newark-Jersey City reports $79,020; Chicago-Naperville-Elgin $102,350; Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue $101,780; San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont $92,830; Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro $105,090; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim $73,810; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara $91,030; Boston-Cambridge-Newton $79,910; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria $75,930; and Mount Vernon-Anacortes $104,510. Employment also varies sharply between the national and metro scales. National electrician employment is 757,220, while the largest employment market among all available metros has 36,550 electrician jobs. Within the top 10 list, New York-Newark-Jersey City matches that largest‑market figure with 36,550 employed electricians, whereas Mount Vernon-Anacortes has 740. These differences illustrate that the national figures provide broad context, while individual metros within the top 10 can combine higher‑than‑national median pay with employment counts that range from under 1,000 to more than 30,000.

New York-Newark-Jersey City holds the #1 LaborCove ranking with a Geography Score of 75.29, a median salary of $79,020, and 36,550 employed electricians. That employment figure equals the largest electrician employment market identified in the geographic data, and it is substantially higher than employment in any of the other top 10 metros. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, ranked #2, has a higher median salary of $102,350 but a lower Geography Score of 65.86 and a smaller employment count of 17,720 than New York-Newark-Jersey City. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, at #3, shows a median salary of $101,780, employment of 9,750, and a Geography Score of 60.52, again below New York’s score. These comparisons underline that the LaborCove Geography Score incorporates more than just median salary. New York-Newark-Jersey City leads the rankings even though Chicago, Seattle, Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, and Mount Vernon-Anacortes all report higher electrician median salaries than New York.

Several metros in the top 10 have electrician median salaries above $100,000 but still rank below New York-Newark-Jersey City. Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro has the highest median salary among the listed metros at $105,090, yet it ranks #5 with a Geography Score of 56.80 and an employment count of 7,340. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue also pass the $100,000 mark, at $102,350 and $101,780 respectively. However, their Geography Scores of 65.86 and 60.52 place them at ranks #2 and #3, trailing New York’s 75.29. Mount Vernon-Anacortes posts a median salary of $104,510 and ranks #10 with a Geography Score of 51.57 and employment of 740. In contrast, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim records a lower median salary of $73,810 than these high‑pay metros, but its Geography Score of 56.42 keeps it in sixth place overall. This spread of results shows that higher salaries within the top 10 do not automatically correspond to higher Geography Scores or higher ranking positions.

Employment counts differ markedly among the top 10 metros, even when their Geography Scores fall within a relatively narrow band. New York-Newark-Jersey City, with 36,550 employed electricians, has the highest Geography Score at 75.29. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, at 20,610 employed electricians, has a Geography Score of 56.42 and ranks #6. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria show intermediate employment levels of 17,720 and 16,580 respectively, with Geography Scores of 65.86 and 52.43. Boston-Cambridge-Newton sits between them in employment with 13,410 electricians and a Geography Score of 53.21. At the lower end of the employment spectrum among the top 10, San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara reports 5,480 electricians with a Geography Score of 56.17, just behind Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim’s 56.42. Mount Vernon-Anacortes has 740 electricians and a Geography Score of 51.57. These figures show that metros with smaller employment counts can still appear in the top 10 when evaluated by LaborCove’s scoring framework.

The top 10 metros for electricians are distributed across several regions. Three of the metros are in California: San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara. Their Geography Scores range from 56.17 in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara to 57.87 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, with Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim in between at 56.42. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ranks #4 with a median salary of $92,830 and employment of 9,060. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ranks #7 with a slightly lower median salary of $91,030 and employment of 5,480. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ranks #6, with the largest employment count among the three California metros at 20,610 but the lowest median salary of the three at $73,810. Outside California, Boston-Cambridge-Newton and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria provide another point of comparison. Boston’s median salary of $79,910 is higher than Washington’s $75,930, while Boston’s employment of 13,410 is smaller than Washington’s 16,580. Their Geography Scores, 53.21 for Boston and 52.43 for Washington, are close together, illustrating how salary and employment combinations can lead to similar overall scores even when the underlying numbers differ.

LaborCove’s metro rankings for electricians rely on authoritative labor‑market sources and its proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For each metro, the Geography Score is calculated from underlying data that includes at least median annual salary and employment counts. The precise weighting of each metric in the score is internal to LaborCove and is not detailed here. For this article, only the supplied data is used: national median salary, national employment, national projected employment growth for electricians, and each top metro’s median salary, employment, ranking, and Geography Score. All growth numbers are national figures for the occupation as a whole and are not applied to individual metros. Readers should treat these rankings as one structured view of the electrician labor market rather than a definitive prescription. Individual decisions may depend on factors such as licensing rules, costs, or lifestyle that are not captured in the available evidence and therefore are not evaluated in this analysis.