Electrician Salary in Illinois: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

An electrician in Illinois earns a median of $99,560 a year, or about $47.87 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most of the trade falls between $49,240 at the entry end and $123,660 at the senior end. That median sits well above what electricians make nationally, and Illinois is one of the better-paying states in the country for this work.

How Illinois compares to the national pay

Start with the gap, because it’s large. The national median for electricians is $63,190, per BLS OEWS 2025. The Illinois median is $99,560. That’s $36,370 more per year for the same job title, a difference of well over half the national figure. Put another way, a typical Illinois electrician out-earns the typical American electrician by a margin that would be a strong salary on its own in many fields.

Two things drive that. First, Illinois is a strongly unionized, licensed-trade state, and Chicago in particular runs on commercial and infrastructure work that pays top scale. Second, the state’s pay distribution is shifted up across the board, not just at the top. Even the 25th percentile in Illinois, at $73,520, clears the national median by more than $10,000. So a worker who is only halfway up the Illinois ladder still earns more than half of all electricians in the country.

The trade-off is that Illinois taxes income, so some of that headline advantage gets handed back at tax time. We break that down in the take-home section. The short version: even after tax, the Illinois figure stays competitive, but the gap to a no-tax state narrows.

It also helps to look at the mean versus the median. The Illinois mean for electricians is $92,230, which sits below the median of $99,560. When the mean falls under the median, it usually means a cluster of lower-paid workers, often apprentices and helpers near the $49,240 entry level, is pulling the average down while a solid middle band holds the median up. For a typical reader, the median is the more honest figure to plan around, because it’s the literal middle of the workforce rather than an average that a handful of low or high earners can distort.

Electrician salary in Illinois by experience

Pay in this trade tracks closely with hours logged, license level, and which contractors you can get on with. Apprentices come in low while they learn and bank hours, journeymen sit around the middle, and senior or master-level electricians who run jobs or specialize push toward the top of the range. The table below uses the BLS percentile points for Illinois as proxies for those career stages.

The jump from entry to early career is the steepest part of the curve. Going from the 10th percentile at $49,240 to the 25th at $73,520 is a gain of $24,280, which mostly reflects finishing an apprenticeship and getting the hours and license that move you off helper pay. After that, progress slows in dollar terms but stays real. The median at $99,560 is $26,040 above the early-career mark, and reaching the experienced 75th-percentile level at $117,460 adds another $17,900 on top of the median.

From experienced to senior the curve flattens. The 90th percentile, at $123,660, is only $6,200 above the 75th. That compression at the top is normal for the trade: once you are a fully licensed journeyman pulling top scale, further gains usually come from moving into foreman or estimator roles, running your own crew, or chasing premium specialties rather than from base hourly bumps. The single biggest lever for most electricians is simply finishing the apprenticeship and clearing that first big step from entry into the journeyman range.

Notice how wide the full Illinois spread is. From the 10th percentile at $49,240 to the 90th at $123,660, the range covers $74,420. That’s a spread of roughly two and a half times: a senior electrician earns about 2.5 times what an apprentice does for the same job title. Few office roles show that kind of internal range, and it reflects how much a license, hours, and specialty can change an electrician’s standing. The practical takeaway is that your title alone tells an employer very little about your pay. Where you sit inside that $49,240 to $123,660 band is set by your license level, your hours, and the contracts you can get on.

One more way to read the table: the median of $99,560 is closer to the 75th percentile of $117,460 than it is to the 25th of $73,520. The middle of the Illinois workforce is already earning solidly, and the climb from median to experienced is shorter in percentage terms than the climb from early career to median. In plain terms, once you reach journeyman pay, you’re most of the way to the top of the trade’s pay scale, and the remaining gains are smaller and harder-won.

Electrician salary by Illinois metro

Where you work inside Illinois matters, and the spread is wide. Chicago and the downstate university and manufacturing hubs pay close to or above the state median, while smaller industrial metros sit lower. The table covers the five Illinois metros with reported data, sorted by median pay.

Chicago is the whole story for employment. The metro reports 17,720 electricians, which is more than three-quarters of the 23,120 working statewide, and it pays the most at $102,350. That combination of high demand and high pay is what pulls the state median up. If you want the most opportunity and the strongest scale, the Chicago commercial and union market is where it is.

Champaign-Urbana is the surprise, at $100,320, nearly matching Chicago despite a tiny headcount of 410. University, hospital, and data infrastructure work in that area keeps wages high. Rockford sits in the middle at $93,280. The two lowest metros here, Decatur at $81,020 and Peoria at $80,460, still pay well above the national median, but they trail Chicago by more than $20,000. The gap between Chicago and Peoria, at $21,890, is large enough that relocating within the state can matter as much as a promotion. Before you compare two offers in different cities, run each through the take-home math below, because the same gross goes further where housing is cheaper.

The employment counts deserve a closer look, because they shape how realistic each metro is for a job search. Chicago’s 17,720 electricians dwarf everywhere else. The next-largest reported workforce is Peoria at 880, then Champaign-Urbana at 410, Decatur at 400, and Rockford at 370. Outside Chicago, the entire reported electrician workforce in these metros adds up to roughly 2,060 jobs. That means two things. First, Chicago is where the openings are, so if you want choice of employer, that’s the market. Second, the high pay in a place like Champaign-Urbana sits on a very small base, so a handful of large projects can swing the local median, and openings there may be sparse even when the rate is excellent.

For a downstate electrician, the decision often comes down to whether the Chicago premium covers the higher cost of living up north. Chicago’s $102,350 median beats Decatur’s $81,020 by $21,331 and Peoria’s $80,460 by $21,890. Those are big nominal gaps, but Chicago housing typically costs more, so the right way to settle it is net pay minus housing, which we get to next. The point for now is that within Illinois, your metro can be worth more than a rung on the experience ladder, and the data lets you size that trade-off precisely instead of guessing.

Take-home pay after taxes in Illinois

Gross pay is the headline; take-home is the number you actually live on. Illinois charges a flat state income tax, so the bite is fairly consistent across income levels. The table below runs each percentile point from the experience section through federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and Illinois state tax, then shows what lands in your account, all figures for the 2026 tax year and based on a single filer with the standard deduction.

At the median, an Illinois electrician grossing $99,560 keeps $73,498 a year, which works out to $6,125 a month. The effective tax rate at that level is 26.2 percent. Entry workers at $49,240 keep $39,165 net, an effective rate of 20.5 percent, while senior earners at $123,660 take home $89,153 at a 27.9 percent rate. The state portion is modest at every level because Illinois uses a flat rate: $4,928 on the median income.

Watch how the effective rate climbs as you move up the table: 20.5 percent at entry, 26.2 percent at the median, 27.5 percent at the experienced level, and 27.9 percent at senior. That rise from 20.5 to 27.9 percent across the range is the federal side at work. Federal income tax is progressive, so each step up the ladder is taxed a little harder. FICA, by contrast, is a flat payroll tax until you hit the Social Security wage cap, which is why it scales smoothly with pay: $3,767 at entry, $7,616 at the median, $8,986 at experienced, and $9,460 at senior. The Illinois state line moves in a tight band too, from $2,437 at entry to $6,121 at the top, because the flat state rate applies evenly.

The practical lesson is that raises near the top of the trade are taxed harder than raises at the bottom. The senior earner at $123,660 grosses $24,100 more than the median earner but keeps only $15,655 of it after tax. So when you’re weighing whether a top-scale specialty or foreman role is worth the extra hours, look at the net gain, not the gross. The headline jump always looks bigger than the money that actually reaches your account.

Here’s the cross-state comparison that matters, because it’s the one no quick answer box will give you. Take that same median electrician. In Illinois, the net is $73,498. In Texas, a state with no income tax, the same $99,560 gross nets $78,426. That’s a gap of $4,928 a year, the exact amount Illinois charges in state tax at this income. So a Texas electrician on identical gross pay keeps $4,928 more every year, purely from the tax difference.

That gap is real, but it isn’t the end of the story, and this is where most pay comparisons go wrong. The number that actually decides your standard of living is net pay minus local housing. Texas keeps more of your paycheck, but Illinois cities, especially downstate metros like Peoria and Decatur, can carry lower housing costs than fast-growing Texas metros. Whether the $4,928 advantage survives depends entirely on rent or mortgage where you’d actually live. Don’t compare gross to gross, and don’t even stop at net to net. Compare net minus housing. To pin down your own figure, run your exact salary through the Illinois paycheck calculator, and if you want help estimating withholding and deductions before you file, TurboTax walks through it line by line.

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How to earn more as an electrician in Illinois

The pay range in Illinois is wide enough that the difference between the median and the 90th percentile, $24,100, is worth chasing deliberately. Here are the concrete moves that push you up the curve in this state.

• Finish the apprenticeship and get licensed. The steepest pay jump in the data is from the 10th to the 25th percentile, a $24,280 gain. That step is mostly about banking your hours and clearing your journeyman license. Nothing else moves your pay faster.
• Get into the Chicago market. Chicago pays a median of $102,350 against $80,460 in Peoria, a $21,890 difference. If you’re downstate and mobile, relocating to the Chicago commercial and union market can raise your pay more than years of seniority elsewhere.
• Move into foreman, estimator, or master electrician roles. Top-end pay near the $123,660 90th-percentile mark usually comes from running crews, bidding jobs, or holding a master license, not from base hourly rate alone.
• Specialize in high-demand work. Industrial controls, high-voltage, solar and EV charging installs, and data-center electrical all command premium rates. Pair the field hours with structured coursework. Platforms like Coursera offer electrical, renewable-energy, and project-management courses that complement on-the-job training.
• Track which metros and contractors pay top scale. Champaign-Urbana pays $100,320 off a tiny workforce, driven by university and infrastructure projects. Knowing where the high-paying work concentrates lets you target it.
• Compare the trade next door before you switch. Plumbers in Illinois earn a median of $99,950, just $390 above electricians, so jumping trades for pay alone rarely pencils out. HVAC sits much lower at $77,410. If you’re already in electrical, the better return is climbing your own ladder rather than retraining sideways.

Sequence these moves rather than scattering them. For most Illinois electricians, the order that pays best is: finish the apprenticeship and license first, because that’s the $24,280 step. Then target the highest-paying market you can reach, which is usually Chicago at $102,350. Then stack a specialty or a master license to push toward the $123,660 top end. Each move builds on the last, and skipping the license step at the start caps everything that follows.

Job outlook for electricians in Illinois

Illinois employs 23,120 electricians, with the clear majority, 17,720, concentrated in the Chicago metro. That concentration tells you where the steady work is. Electrical is a licensed trade with consistent demand from construction, infrastructure renewal, and the build-out of EV charging, solar, and data-center capacity, all of which lean heavily on skilled electricians. Because the role can’t be offshored and the work requires a license, it stays comparatively insulated from the swings that hit other fields. When you’re ready to compare openings and pay across Illinois employers, a board like ZipRecruiter is a fast way to see what local contractors are posting.

Related and higher-paying roles in Illinois

Electrical sits in a cluster of skilled trades that pay close together in Illinois. Here’s exactly how the neighbors compare to the electrician median of $99,560, using BLS OEWS 2025 figures for the state.

A plumber in Illinois earns a median of $99,950, which is $390 more than an electrician. The two trades are effectively neck and neck here. An HVAC technician earns a median of $77,410, which is $22,150 less than an electrician in Illinois. So among these three trades, electrical and plumbing top out near each other while HVAC pays noticeably less in this state.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025; ThePayGuide tax modeling for the 2026 tax year. Last updated 2026. See our methodology.