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Solar Installer Employment Statistics: Jobs, Pay and Growth

Solar photovoltaic installer employment, wages, projections, state concentrations and broader solar workforce measures, with dates and definitions kept distinct.

November 12, 2026 8 min read simplesolarllc.com Editorial Team

Contents

Solar installer employment statistics: Where are solar photovoltaic installer jobs concentrated?

The available state figures point to a clear concentration among the listed high-employment areas, but they are not a complete state ranking. In May 2024, California had 8,970 solar photovoltaic installer jobs and Texas had 5,370. Puerto Rico reported 1,430, while Arizona reported 1,360. These are OEWS occupation estimates for the named areas, not counts of every person whose work touches solar. Source: BLS, May 2024 state employment table

State or areaSolar photovoltaic installer jobs, May 2024
California8,970
Texas5,370
Puerto Rico1,430
Arizona1,360

The same BLS table lists New Jersey with 1,280 jobs and Virginia with 1,110. North Carolina had 730; Indiana had 660; and Colorado had 650. Since the table is explicitly limited to states and areas with the highest employment levels, it should be read as a selected set rather than a full map of installer employment. The figures also describe May 2024, not current hiring levels. Source: BLS, May 2024 state employment table

State or areaSolar photovoltaic installer jobs, May 2024
New Jersey1,280
Virginia1,110
North Carolina730
Indiana660
Colorado650

Solar installer employment statistics: How many people work as solar photovoltaic installers?

The national OEWS estimate counted 31,350 solar photovoltaic installer jobs in May 2025. BLS’s Occupational Outlook Handbook uses a separate 2025 base estimate of 31,100 in its employment-projection table. The values have different purposes and should remain distinct: one is the May 2025 OEWS national employment estimate, while the other is the base-year figure for the 2025–2035 projection. Sources: BLS, May 2025 national employment table; BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Installers are counted by occupation, while employer-industry categories describe where those workers are employed. In the OOH’s 2025 employer distribution, electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors accounted for 39% of installer jobs. Temporary help services accounted for 17%, utilities 13%, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors 11%, and power and communication line and related structures construction 10%. The distribution shows that this occupation spans several employer types; it does not mean every worker in those industries is an installer. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Employer industryShare of installer jobs, 2025
Electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors39%
Temporary help services17%
Utilities13%
Plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors11%
Power and communication line and related structures construction10%

Solar installer employment statistics: What do installers earn?

BLS reported a median annual wage of $53,140 for solar photovoltaic installers in May 2025. The median divides the wage distribution: half of workers earned more and half earned less. At the lower end, the lowest-paid 10% earned less than $41,600 annually; at the upper end, the highest-paid 10% earned more than $79,970. These thresholds describe the national occupation distribution, not guaranteed pay for a particular job or location. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Median pay also varied by employer industry. Among the listed industries, installers at electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors had a May 2025 median annual wage of $58,570. The median was $57,260 for installers at plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors, $51,460 at utilities, $48,460 in power and communication line and related structures construction, and $47,100 in temporary help services. These are industry-specific medians for installers, not the median wage of all workers in each industry. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Installer employer industryMedian annual wage, May 2025
Electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors$58,570
Plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors$57,260
Utilities$51,460
Power and communication line and related structures construction$48,460
Temporary help services$47,100

For comparison, the May 2025 median annual wage was $50,980 for all occupations and $58,150 for construction trades workers. Those are broader benchmarks, not installer-specific wages. The overall installer median of $53,140 sits between those two comparison figures, while industry medians vary around it. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Solar installer employment statistics: How fast is installer employment projected to grow?

BLS’s Occupational Outlook Handbook projects solar photovoltaic installer employment to grow 37% from 2025 to 2035. Its table starts with 31,100 jobs in 2025 and projects 42,400 in 2035, a reported increase of 11,300 jobs. The percentage change is rounded to the nearest whole number in the OOH presentation. These are projections, not observed future employment. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

The same outlook projects about 4,200 openings per year on average over 2025–2035. Openings include positions arising when workers transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force, so this annual openings estimate is not the same as net employment growth. It indicates expected replacement needs alongside expansion. Source: BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook

A separate BLS projection vintage reported a different period and result: the July 2026 TED article projected 42.1% growth and 12,000 additional solar photovoltaic installer jobs from 2024 to 2034. That 2024–2034 projection should not be combined with or substituted for the OOH’s 2025–2035 figures. Each describes a distinct projection period. Source: BLS, The Economics Daily, July 13, 2026

Solar installer employment statistics: How do installation jobs compare across solar market segments?

IREC’s 2024 estimates divide jobs at installation and project-development firms by solar market segment. Residential firms accounted for 79,633 jobs, or 45%. Utility-scale solar represented 58,351 jobs, or 33%; commercial solar accounted for 25,823, or 14%; and community solar accounted for 14,906, or 8%. These are market-segment estimates that include support roles. They are not counts of the solar photovoltaic installer occupation. Source: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Job Trends

Solar market segmentEstimated jobs, 2024Share, 2024
Residential79,63345%
Utility-scale58,35133%
Commercial25,82314%
Community solar14,9068%

The segment trends from 2021 to 2024 moved in different directions. Estimated utility-scale jobs increased 73%, while residential jobs declined 6%, commercial jobs declined 25%, and community solar jobs declined 4%. Across installation and project development as a whole, jobs increased 10% over that period. The overall sector trend and segment-specific shifts describe different levels of the same firm-sector measure; none is an occupation-only employment change. Source: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Job Trends

Solar installer employment statistics: How do broader solar-industry job counts differ from installer employment?

IREC’s 2024 Census provides broader workforce counts under explicitly different definitions. Its majority-time measure counted 280,119 U.S. solar energy jobs: workers spending the majority of their time on solar-related work. Its plurality-time solar measure counted 370,556 workers who spent the largest share, but not necessarily a majority, of their work time on solar-related activity. IREC also counted 93,487 people under a plurality-time clean-storage measure, mainly battery storage; the stated combined solar and storage industry total was 464,053 workers. These are broad industry measures, not BLS installer occupation counts. Source: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Job Trends

Within the solar firm sectors, installation and project development contained 178,713 jobs in 2024. IREC says that category includes firms constructing residential, commercial, and utility-scale projects, along with direct installation workers and support roles such as sales, marketing, software, management, and finance. The other reported sector counts were 34,625 jobs in wholesale trade and distribution, 32,491 in manufacturing, 21,833 in operations and maintenance (O&M), and 12,457 in “All Others,” a category covering research organizations, nonprofits, and miscellaneous areas. Source: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Job Trends

IREC’s long-term series describes installation and project-development employment at about 44,000 jobs in 2010, 162,000 in 2019, and 178,000 in 2024. These are rounded sector counts, including support roles, rather than installer occupation totals. In O&M, the reported count rose from 11,164 jobs in 2019 to 21,833 in 2024. For the year-over-year comparison from 2023 to 2024, manufacturing jobs declined 2%, as did jobs in the All Others category. Source: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Job Trends

A state figure from IREC provides another illustration of the difference in scope: California had 78,982 broad solar-industry jobs in 2024. That total covers solar-industry employment, not only photovoltaic installers, and therefore cannot be compared directly with the BLS May 2024 California installer count of 8,970 as if both measured the same workforce. Sources: IREC, National Solar Jobs Census 2024: Solar Jobs by State; BLS, May 2024 state employment table

Read together, these figures answer different questions: BLS occupation statistics count solar photovoltaic installers, while IREC’s counts cover people working across solar firm sectors, market segments, and broader solar or storage activity. Keeping those populations and periods separate is essential when interpreting employment, wages, growth projections, or workforce scale.

Sources

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