Electrician Job Description: Template, Duties, Requirements & Pay (2026)
An electrician installs, maintains and repairs the wiring, panels, lighting and control systems that power homes, businesses and industrial plants, working to the National Electrical Code and state licensing rules. Below: a copy-paste electrician job description template (journeyman, residential, commercial and industrial variants), the duties and requirements that matter, and what electrician applicants cost on social media from Boostpoint's trades campaigns.
What an electrician does
Electricians divide by setting more than by task. Residential electricians wire new homes and remodels, upgrade panels and service, and run service calls for homeowners. Commercial electricians work from prints on offices, retail, schools and hospitals: conduit, wire pulls, distribution, lighting and fire alarm, on a superintendent's schedule. Industrial electricians keep plants running: motor controls, PLCs, VFDs, three-phase distribution, troubleshooting under production pressure. A fourth group — low-voltage, solar, EV charging — is growing fastest. Most postings need one of these and attract all of them.
Core electrician duties and responsibilities:
- Read blueprints, schematics and specifications; plan circuit layouts and conduit runs
- Install, bend and secure conduit, raceway and cable; pull and terminate wire
- Install and wire panels, breakers, transformers, disconnects, receptacles, lighting and controls
- Test circuits and equipment with multimeters, meggers and clamp meters; diagnose faults and repair
- Install and troubleshoot motor controls, VFDs, PLC I/O and building automation [industrial/commercial]
- Ensure all work complies with the National Electrical Code, state amendments and local inspection requirements
- Follow lockout/tagout, arc-flash and fall-protection procedures
- Complete work orders, material lists and as-builts; coordinate with other trades and inspectors
- [Supervise apprentices and helpers; lead a crew]
The BLS counts about 821,000 electricians with roughly 72,700 openings a year and growth of 9% through 2035, driven by electrification, data centers, manufacturing construction and grid upgrades. Licensing runs through state (sometimes municipal) journeyman and master exams after a four- to five-year apprenticeship of about 8,000 on-the-job hours plus classroom time. The 2025 median wage was $30.38 an hour, with union commercial and industrial electricians well above it.
Electrician job description template
Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and cut anything that doesn't apply. It's written the way applicants read — pay, schedule and location first — because those are the three things people screen on before they read a duty list.
Job title
[Journeyman / Residential / Commercial / Industrial] Electrician — [Full-time], [City, State]
Summary
[Company] is hiring a licensed [journeyman] electrician for [residential service and panel upgrades / commercial construction projects / industrial maintenance at our X plant] in [area]. Pay is $[XX]–$[XX]/hour based on license and experience, with [overtime / per diem on travel jobs / sign-on bonus]. [Company van or truck / tools and PPE provided / consistent local work — home every night.] [State] journeyman license required; [X]-year apprentices considered for the [helper] role.
Responsibilities
- Install, maintain and repair [residential / commercial / industrial] electrical systems to NEC and local code
- Bend and install conduit; pull, terminate and label wire
- Install and wire panels, transformers, lighting, receptacles, [motor controls, VFDs, PLC I/O]
- Troubleshoot faults with test equipment and restore service safely
- Read prints and specs; lay out work and coordinate with other trades and inspectors
- Follow LOTO, arc-flash and all safety procedures; keep a clean, organized site
- Complete work orders, material requests and as-builts
- [Lead apprentices and helpers]
Requirements
- [State] [journeyman / master] electrician license in good standing [or reciprocal license]
- [3+] years of [residential / commercial / industrial] electrical experience
- Working knowledge of the current NEC and local amendments
- Valid driver's license [with an insurable record for a company vehicle]
- Able to lift [50] lbs, work from ladders and lifts, and stand, kneel and climb for the shift
- Able to pass a background check [and drug screen]; [OSHA 10/30]
Preferred
- [Conduit bending / fire alarm / solar / EV charging / PLC and controls] experience
- [OSHA 30, NFPA 70E, lift certification]
- Experience with [ServiceTitan / Procore / field service app]
- Experience with [healthcare / data center / manufacturing] projects
- Bilingual [Spanish/English]
Schedule and pay
- $[XX]–$[XX]/hour by license level and experience
- [Overtime at 1.5x after 40; per diem $XX/day on travel work]
- [Sign-on bonus $X,XXX]; [tool allowance]
- Schedule: [Mon–Fri, 6:30–3:00 / 4x10s]; [on-call rotation]
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision after [30/60] days
- [401(k) with X% match]
- Paid time off and [X] paid holidays
- [Company vehicle / fuel card]; tools and PPE provided
- Paid continuing education, license renewal and code updates
- [Uniforms and boot allowance]
Requirements: what's required, what's preferred, and what kills applications
Electrician postings are among the most over-specified in the trades. The license is non-negotiable; nearly everything else is a preference dressed as a requirement.
| Requirement | What to know |
|---|---|
| State journeyman or master license | Required to work unsupervised in nearly every state; some license at the city level. Name the state and level, and say whether you accept reciprocity — it can double the eligible pool near state lines. |
| Experience by setting | Specify residential, commercial or industrial. Ten years of residential doesn't make a plant electrician, and a commercial hand may have never run a service call. Match the requirement to the actual work. |
| NEC knowledge | Reasonable to require; unnecessary to test in the application. A licensed electrician passed a code exam. |
| Driver's license | Required if there's a company vehicle. State the insurer's actual standard. |
| Own tools | List what's required (hand tools, meter) and what's provided (power tools, benders, lifts). An undefined “must have own tools” costs applicants. |
| OSHA 10/30, NFPA 70E, lift cards | Preferred unless a customer contract requires them at start. Most contractors provide the training in the first weeks; say so. |
| Degree | Not required. Apprenticeship is the standard path; a degree requirement filters out licensed electricians for no gain. |
| Résumé and references | Never in the initial application. Ask for license number and state, years by setting, and availability; verify the license before the interview. |
How to customize it for your setting
Residential service and remodel
Lead with the van, the call mix (panel upgrades, EV chargers, generators) and any performance pay. Service electricians screen on on-call load and drive time.
Commercial construction
Name the projects, the general contractors, the schedule (4x10s are a real draw) and whether work is local or travel with per diem. Commercial electricians move for a steady backlog.
Industrial / plant maintenance
This is a different applicant: controls, PLCs, motors, shift work. Post it as “industrial electrician” or “maintenance electrician,” name the equipment, and lead with shift and differential. Our manufacturing recruiting page has plant-role campaign data.
Apprentice
A separate posting with wage steps, the sponsoring program and hours to journeyman. Combining it with a journeyman ad muddies both. Our blue-collar hiring benchmarks cover the entry-level pool.
What it costs to reach electricians on social
Skilled trades applicants cost a median of $14.14 across 35 trades campaign-months in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the middle half of campaigns between $7.58 and $21.49, with 15% of clickers completing the application. Across 45 field and trades campaigns in 2025–2026 the blended figure was $9.28, most campaigns between $6 and $17 — lower because it's a volume-weighted average across earlier campaigns; budget against the 2026 medians.
Against that, a staffing agency placing one journeyman electrician earning $65,000 typically charges 15–25% of first-year salary, about $9,750 to $16,250 for a single hire. That comparison — and why we don't publish a confident per-electrician figure when campaigns advertise several trades at once — is in what it costs to recruit skilled trades workers. The skilled trades recruiting page has the age and role breakdown: 35–44 is the cheapest and largest band for trades applicants, and customer-facing roles at contractors fill for roughly two-thirds the cost of field roles.
If you are hiring electricians rather than describing the job, the recruiting side — where they are, what the ad has to say, and what an applicant costs to reach — is on our electrician recruiting page.
Writing the ad version
On social the ad is pay, setting, schedule and truck: “Journeyman electricians — $36–$46/hr, commercial, 4x10s, local work, home every night. [Company], [City]. State license required. Apply in 60 seconds.” Knockout questions: license level and state, years by setting (residential/commercial/industrial), driver's license, availability. No résumé.
Electricians respond to specifics — the projects, the tools, the crew. A 15-second clip from a job site with a foreman saying what the backlog looks like does more than any benefits list. The reach-side playbook is in how to recruit construction workers who already have a job.
Electrician position description: what changes between a job profile and a job ad
A position description is the internal document: the scope of the role, the license level it sits at, who it reports to, and what it is accountable for. A job profile of an electrician written for recruiting is a different artefact with a different reader. Both matter, and the mistake is publishing the first as though it were the second.
What the position description has to settle before anything is advertised is the license level and the setting, because those two together define the pay band and the pool. An apprentice, a journeyman and a master are three different labor markets, and residential, commercial and industrial work are three more. A position description that says only electrician forces the recruiter to guess, and the guess shows up in the advertisement as vagueness that costs applicants. Set the level, name the setting, state whether the role runs its own truck or works from prints on a superintendent schedule, and the advertisement writes itself out of it.
Electrician duties and responsibilities by license level
"Electrician duties" is one search and three different jobs, because the license level decides what a person may legally do unsupervised. A job description that does not name the level is asking three different candidate pools to self-select, and getting the wrong one.
Apprentice. Works under supervision, on an hours-and-classroom track. Duties: pulling and terminating wire, bending and mounting conduit, setting boxes and devices, demolition and rough-in labor, material handling, keeping the job clean, documenting hours. Hire for reliability and hands, not knowledge.
Journeyman. Works unsupervised on installations to code. Duties: reading and working from prints and one-lines; rough-in and trim; installing panels, feeders, branch circuits, lighting and controls; terminating and labeling; troubleshooting faults; pulling permits where the state or local rule allows; and usually directing an apprentice. This is the level most postings mean and fewest specify.
Master. Everything above, plus design and load calculations, permit responsibility, code interpretation, and supervisory liability for the work of others. In most jurisdictions a master's license is what a contractor's license hangs from — so if you need one for the business rather than for the job site, say that plainly, because it is a different offer.
The duties that vary more than the level does
Residential — service changes, remodels, troubleshooting in occupied homes, customer contact, and often selling the repair. Commercial — conduit and pipe work, three-phase, larger gear, prints, and badge or site requirements. Industrial — motors and drives, controls and PLC interface, high voltage, lockout/tagout discipline, plant shutdown windows. Service and maintenance — a van, a route, diagnostics, and the ability to explain a repair to someone who does not want to pay for it.
State both axes — level and sector — in the first two lines of the posting. An industrial journeyman reading a residential service ad and a residential electrician reading an industrial ad both close the tab, and neither of them was the wrong candidate for your other job.
Frequently asked questions
What are the duties and responsibilities of an electrician?
Installing, maintaining and repairing electrical wiring, conduit, panels, lighting, controls and equipment to the National Electrical Code; reading blueprints and laying out circuits; testing and troubleshooting with electrical test equipment; following lockout/tagout and arc-flash safety procedures; and documenting work and coordinating inspections.
What qualifications does an electrician need?
A state (or in some places city) journeyman or master electrician license, typically earned after a four- to five-year apprenticeship of roughly 8,000 on-the-job hours plus classroom instruction and a code exam. Employers usually also require a driver's license and the physical ability to work from ladders and lifts. No degree is required.
How much do electricians make?
The 2025 national median was $30.38 an hour, or $63,190 a year, per O*NET/BLS. Union commercial and industrial electricians, master electricians and those in high-cost metros commonly earn $80,000–$110,000+ with overtime.
What's the difference between residential, commercial and industrial electricians?
Residential electricians wire homes and run service calls; commercial electricians work from prints on buildings — conduit, distribution, lighting, fire alarm — on construction schedules; industrial electricians maintain plant equipment, motor controls, PLCs and three-phase power. The license is the same; the skills, pay structure and applicant pool differ, so postings should name the setting.
What should an electrician job description template include?
The setting (residential, commercial, industrial), license level and state, pay range, schedule (including 4x10s or travel with per diem), what vehicle and tools are provided, physical and safety requirements, and benefits. Pay, setting and schedule belong in the first two lines.
What is the difference between an electrician job description and a position description?
A position description is the internal document: the scope of the role, the license level, the reporting line and what the role is accountable for. A job description written for recruiting is a public document aimed at a candidate who is currently employed and comparing options. Both should settle the same two things first, because everything else follows from them: the license level, apprentice, journeyman or master, and the setting, residential, commercial or industrial. Those two define the pay band and the pool, and a description that names neither forces the advertisement to be vague.
What are an electrician’s duties and responsibilities?
They depend on license level. An apprentice pulls and terminates wire, bends conduit, sets boxes and devices and works supervised. A journeyman works unsupervised from prints — rough-in and trim, panels, feeders, branch circuits, lighting and controls, troubleshooting, and directing an apprentice. A master adds design and load calculations, permit responsibility, code interpretation and supervisory liability.
Should an electrician job description name the license level?
Yes — it is the single most important line. The level decides what the person may legally do unsupervised, and apprentice, journeyman and master are three different candidate pools with three different pay expectations. Name the sector too: residential, commercial, industrial and service are different jobs.
Description written and interviews booked? Our electrician interview questions page covers eight questions worth the time, and why a state license does not by itself make someone a qualified person under OSHA.
Other job description templates
See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.
Hiring electricians?
The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where working electricians are scrolling, and report what each applicant cost with the management fee inside — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.
Pay, employment and outlook figures: O*NET OnLine (Electricians, 47-2111), 2025 wage data, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (skilled trades segment, 35 campaign-months) and 45 Boostpoint-managed field and trades campaigns 2025–2026. Last updated August 2026.