Demand for construction workers translates to strong wages. The construction industry generally compensates its workers well, especially when considering that few construction occupations require a postsecondary degree. On a national level, full- and part-time wage and salary construction workers earn a median of $50,570 per year, which is about 9% more than the median wage of $46,310 for all occupations.

At the state level, the Midwest is home to some of the highest wages for construction workers after adjusting for cost of living. Illinois leads the country with a cost-of-living adjusted median annual wage of $73,630, with Minnesota ($63,390), North Dakota ($62,336), Wisconsin ($61,877), and Ohio ($61,141) all ranking among the top 10 states. Conversely, the South has the lowest cost-of-living adjusted wages for construction workers. In fact, the South accounts for all of the bottom 10 states for this ranking, with Arkansas ($44,217), Florida ($44,602), and Alabama ($45,961) providing the lowest adjusted wages for construction workers in the country.

These trends also hold true at the metropolitan level. To determine the best-paying metros for construction workers, researchers at Construction Coverage, a website that provides construction insurance guides, analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the U.S. Census Bureau. The researchers ranked metropolitan areas according to the cost-of-living adjusted median annual wage for construction workers. For the purposes of this analysis, construction workers were considered to be all wage and salary workers for nonfarm establishments with occupations classified under the Construction and Extraction Occupations major occupation group. In the event of a tie, the location with the larger unadjusted median annual wage for construction workers was ranked higher.

Here are the best-paying U.S. metropolitan areas for construction workers.