Career research · updated 2026-07-02
Skilled Trades Career Index: 6 Trades, Compared Honestly
Every "trades vs. college" listicle on the internet either sells one trade or sells none of them honestly. This page does neither. We pulled real 2025 median-wage and 10-year outlook data for six trades people actually cross-shop — locksmith, electrician, plumber, HVAC, welder, automotive technician — from O*NET OnLine and the U.S. Department of Labor, and we're not going to pretend locksmithing wins every row. It doesn't. It loses on pay and on 10-year job growth. It wins on entry cost, licensing burden, and time to your first solo paycheck. Read the whole table before you pick.
The comparison table
| Metric | Locksmith | Electrician | Plumber | HVAC | Welder | Auto Tech |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median annual pay (2025) | $51,320 | $63,190 | $63,800 | $61,010 | $53,750 | $50,620 |
| 10-yr job outlook, 2024–34 | Decline (≤−1%) | Much faster than avg (7%+) | Faster than avg (5–6%) | Much faster than avg (7%+) | Slower than avg (1–2%) | Average (3–4%) |
| Projected openings, 2024–34 | ~1,700 | ~81,000 | ~44,000 | ~40,100 | ~45,600 | ~70,000 |
| Typical entry credential | HS diploma/GED — no license needed to train | Post-secondary cert + 4–5 yr apprenticeship | Post-secondary cert / apprenticeship | Post-secondary cert, 1–2 yr | HS diploma; cert optional | Post-secondary cert, 1–2 yr |
| Entry training cost | $400–$3,000 (private course) | $14,640 avg private tuition — or $0 net via paid registered apprenticeship | $8K–$15K private, or $0 net via apprenticeship | $10,000–$15,000 | $5,000–$15,000 | Typically $10K–$20K (range not independently verified for this page) |
| Time to first solo paycheck | 90 days – 1 year | 4–5 yrs to journeyman; longer to run your own shop | 4–5 yrs to journeyman; longer to run your own shop | 1–2 yrs + mandatory EPA cert before touching refrigerant | Weeks – months to get hired; solo business path less structured | Months to get hired; 2–5 yrs typical before shop ownership |
| State licensing burden | 15 of 50 states require a state license | Licensed (state or local) in nearly all states | Licensed in the large majority of states | Federal EPA 608 cert mandatory nationwide + state licensing common | No state license in most states | No state license in most states; ASE cert is voluntary |
| Physical toll (qualitative) | Kneeling/crouching at doors & vehicles, repetitive fine motor work | Elevated work, live-electrical exposure | Crawlspaces, heavy lifting, sewage/chemical exposure | Rooftop/attic extreme temps, refrigerant handling | Burns, fumes, eye hazard — PPE mandatory | Repetitive strain, fluid/chemical exposure, lifting |
| AI-automation resistance | Low risk — hands-on, on-site, non-routine | Low risk — same task profile | Low risk — Frey & Osborne (2013) score: 0.35 | Low risk — same task profile | Low risk — same task profile | Low risk — same task profile |
What the table actually means, trade by trade
Locksmith: cheapest door in, smallest market on the other side of it
Locksmithing is the only trade in this table with a declining 10-year outlook and the smallest occupation size by far — O*NET/BLS Employment Projections estimate only about 1,700 total openings nationally through 2034, versus tens of thousands for the other five trades. That's the honest downside. The honest upside: it is also the cheapest and fastest trade to enter. Private locksmith courses run $400–$3,000 (ALOA's in-person Fundamentals of Locksmithing runs roughly $1,500–$2,000; online programs run $400–$1,000), 35 of 50 US states require no statewide license (see our full state-by-state licensing guide), and a working starter tool kit runs about $1,000 — see our realistic $1,000 tool kit breakdown. A shrinking occupation with an aging workforce (median age above 50, per BLS) also means real demand for people willing to replace the locksmiths retiring out of it — that tension is the actual opportunity, not a marketing spin on it.
Electrician: the highest ceiling, the longest runway
Electricians post the strongest outlook of the six (7%+ growth, ~81,000 projected openings) and a median wage $11,870/year above locksmithing. The cost is time: a standard IEC/NECA apprenticeship runs 4–5 years and roughly 8,000 hours of on-the-job training plus about 576 hours of classroom instruction before you're a journeyman — and most states require passing a journeyman exam on the National Electrical Code before you can legally work unsupervised. Registered apprenticeships pay you while you train (typically 40–50% of journeyman wage in year one, scaling up), which offsets the private-tuition figure above if you can land a slot.
Plumber: top median pay, same multi-year licensing wall as electrical
Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters have the highest median wage in this table ($63,800) and strong growth (5–6%). The barrier is nearly identical to electrical work: a multi-year apprenticeship, journeyman licensing in the large majority of states, and additional years of experience plus a second exam for a master/contractor license if you want to run your own shop.
HVAC: fast growth, one certification nobody can skip
HVAC mechanics and installers post the second-fastest growth in this table and a relatively short 1–2 year entry-training window — but there's a hard federal floor under it. EPA Section 608 certification (40 CFR Part 82, Subpart F) is legally required nationwide before any technician can purchase or handle refrigerant, full stop, regardless of what state you're in. It doesn't expire once earned, but it is not optional the way locksmith licensing is optional in 35 states.
Welder: fastest to get hired, slowest-growing occupation on this list
Welding has the shortest realistic timeline to a paycheck (weeks to months, no state license in most states) and a real, physical, well-paid trade — but the lowest projected growth of the six (1–2%, "slower than average"). Most welders work as employees inside manufacturing, construction, or fabrication shops rather than running independent service businesses, which is a structurally different path than the other five.
Automotive technician: the volume trade
Auto techs post the second-largest number of projected openings (~70,000) and a fast hiring timeline, with the tradeoff of the lowest median wage in the table alongside locksmithing. ASE certification is the industry-standard credential, but unlike EPA 608 for HVAC, it's voluntary — not a legal requirement in most states.
How we picked these six and where the data comes from
We chose the six trades career-changers most commonly search against locksmithing (verified against Lock School's own inbound traffic and the trade-comparison content already on this site, including our locksmith-vs-electrician deep dive). Wage and outlook figures come from O*NET OnLine (onetonline.org), which republishes the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) and Employment Projections programs under license from the U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration. We attempted to pull the BLS OEWS tables directly; bls.gov returned HTTP 403 to automated requests at the time of writing, so we sourced the same underlying BLS figures through O*NET's published summaries instead and note that substitution here for transparency. Where we could not verify a number to our own standard (the auto-tech training-cost range), we said so in the table rather than inventing a precise figure.
If locksmithing is still the trade you want
The 90-day path, the real tool costs, and the state-by-state licensing rules — not a sales pitch, the actual curriculum.
Questions, answered straight
Which trade pays the most?
Plumbers/pipefitters/steamfitters, at a $63,800 median in 2025 O*NET/BLS data, narrowly ahead of electricians at $63,190. Locksmithing is fifth of six on median pay.
Which trade is cheapest to get into?
Locksmithing, by a wide margin. Private course tuition runs $400–$3,000 versus $10,000+ for electrician, HVAC, or welding trade-school programs, and you can legally start working in 35 of 50 states without any state license.
Is locksmithing dying?
The occupation's national headcount is shrinking on paper (BLS Employment Projections lists it as a declining occupation, -1% or lower through 2034) because it's a small, aging workforce with few formal training pipelines feeding it — not because demand for the work itself is disappearing. Lockouts, rekeys, and smart-lock installs are steady, recurring service calls regardless of the national occupation-count trend.
Do these six trades face different AI/automation risk?
Not meaningfully. All six require physical manipulation, sensory judgment, and on-site problem solving that current AI/robotics can't replicate at scale, per the Frey & Osborne (Oxford Martin School, 2013) computerisation-probability framework and O*NET's task-content data. The one trade in this list with an individually published Frey-Osborne score in the sources we could verify is plumbing, at 0.35 (35% computerisation probability — on the low end).
Sources
O*NET OnLine, U.S. Dept. of Labor/Employment and Training Administration — wage and outlook data for Locksmiths and Safe Repairers (49-9094.00), Electricians (47-2111.00), Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (47-2152.00), Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers (49-9021.00), Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers (51-4121.00), Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics (49-3023.00) — all citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS/Employment Projections, 2025 data, retrieved 2026-07-02. EPA Section 608 requirement: epa.gov/section608. ALOA training costs: aloa.org and industry cost aggregators, retrieved 2026-07-02. Automation-risk framework: Frey, C.B. & Osborne, M.A. (2013), "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?," Oxford Martin School Working Paper.