Skilled Trades careers

The trades are having the moment universities used to have. A generation was told college was the only respectable path, half the skilled workforce aged toward retirement, and now the shortage is doing what shortages do: paying people to fix it.

What pays: anything with a hard license and a dangerous failure mode. Elevator technicians median around $100k in the US, the best-kept secret in blue-collar work. Experienced union electricians, power line workers, and industrial plant operators sit at $80k–$110k, and specialists (underwater welders, crane operators, wind turbine techs on travel contracts) can push well past that. Owning the business is the real ceiling: a plumbing or electrical contractor with three crews out-earns most lawyers.

What doesn’t: unlicensed, easily entered work. General labor, basic landscaping, and residential painting stay at $35k–$50k because nothing stops new entrants. The pattern is identical to white-collar work: the license and the scarcity are the salary.

Direction of travel: upward, and faster than most degree careers. US apprenticeship applications are at record highs but nowhere near replacement rate, and the roles cannot be offshored or done by AI. The honest downside is your body: the earnings curve peaks earlier than desk work, and the exit plan (supervision, inspection, ownership) matters more than in any office career.