Best States for Electricians in 2026

Across the 10 highest‑ranked states for electricians, the data show a wide range of salary and employment profiles, even though all share the same projected growth rate. Some states, such as Oregon and Illinois, pair very high median salaries with more modest employment counts, while others, such as Texas and California, stand out for much larger employment totals. The CareerGPS Geography Scores confirm that the top‑ranked state is not simply the one with the highest pay or the largest number of employed electricians. For example, Oregon has the highest median salary among these states but ranks sixth overall, while California ranks first with a lower median salary than several other states but one of the largest employment counts in the top 10.

The national median annual salary for electricians in 2026 is $63,190, with 757,220 electricians employed across the country. Within the top 10 ranked states, several have median salaries above this national figure, including California at $76,160, Illinois at $99,560, Washington at $95,220, New York at $78,750, Oregon at $101,310, Hawaii at $96,460, Massachusetts at $79,420, Alaska at $89,440, and New Jersey at $77,250. Texas is the only state in the top 10 where the median electrician salary, at $58,570, is below the national median. At the same time, Texas has the largest employment count among these top‑ranked states, with 76,770 electricians, while California follows with 73,310. Both states’ employment counts are well below the national total of 757,220, which reflects all states combined rather than any single labor market.

CareerGPS Geography Scores show that California ranks #1 for electricians with a score of 68.64, ahead of Illinois at 58.63 and Washington at 57.60. New York, at 56.56, and Texas, at 55.03, complete the top five. The remaining five states in the top 10—Oregon (53.63), Hawaii (51.28), Massachusetts (47.96), Alaska (45.28), and New Jersey (43.68)—all have lower Geography Scores than California but remain within the leading group nationally. These rankings highlight that the highest Geography Score does not always coincide with the highest salary. Oregon has the highest median salary among the listed states at $101,310 but holds the #6 ranking with a Geography Score of 53.63, which is below California’s 68.64 and Illinois’s 58.63. Illinois itself has a higher median salary than California but ranks second, underscoring that the Geography Score reflects more than salary alone.

Several top‑ranked states offer median electrician salaries that are substantially above the national median of $63,190. Oregon leads this group at $101,310, followed by Illinois at $99,560, Hawaii at $96,460, Washington at $95,220, and Alaska at $89,440. Each of these states also has a Geography Score that places it within the national top 10, even though their exact rankings differ. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and California also sit above the national salary benchmark, with median salaries of $79,420, $78,750, $77,250, and $76,160 respectively. Within this cluster, Illinois and Oregon both have higher salaries than California but lower Geography Scores, with Illinois at 58.63 and Oregon at 53.63 compared with California’s 68.64. This pattern reinforces that higher pay alone does not determine a state’s overall position in the CareerGPS Pro rankings.

Employment counts for electricians vary widely across the top 10 states. Texas has 76,770 electricians, the largest employment count in this group, while California is close behind with 73,310. New York follows with 40,130 electricians, and Illinois and Massachusetts report 23,120 and 17,810 respectively. On the lower end of the employment scale among these states, Oregon has 10,590 electricians, New Jersey has 13,520, Washington has 19,380, Hawaii has 3,070, and Alaska has 1,870. All of these state‑level employment counts are much smaller than the national total of 757,220, which aggregates employment across all 50 states rather than representing any single state.

Every state in the top 10 list—California, Illinois, Washington, New York, Texas, Oregon, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Alaska, and New Jersey—shares the same projected electrician growth rate of 9.5%. Because this growth rate is identical across all of these states, it does not distinguish one top‑ranked state from another in the 2026 CareerGPS Pro Geography Scores. Instead, the variation among these states comes from differences in median salary, employment counts, and Geography Scores. For example, Texas and California combine some of the largest employment counts in the group with different salary positions relative to the national median, while Oregon pairs the highest median salary with a smaller employment count and a mid‑range top‑10 Geography Score.

CareerGPS Pro uses authoritative labor‑market data for electricians (occupation 47-2111) and applies its CareerGPS Geography Score to compare states. For this article, we use the 2026 national benchmarks of a $63,190 median annual salary and 757,220 employed electricians, alongside state‑level salary, employment, growth, and Geography Score data. Each state’s ranking reflects its CareerGPS Geography Score, which is calculated from the underlying labor‑market metrics supplied to CareerGPS Pro. The exact contribution of each metric to the final score is not disclosed here, so this article treats Geography Scores and rankings as given rather than explaining why a state earns a particular position. Electricians should view these rankings as one structured input into relocation or career decisions. Individual priorities—such as preferred region, personal circumstances, or other local factors—may lead to different choices than the statewide patterns summarized in this analysis.