By Clint Sanchez
When a pipe bursts, most of the businesses a homeowner can call are small. Federal data shows the plumbing trade is made up largely of owner-operators and crews of a few people.
That structure matters for homeowners trying to find a plumber, and for small shops trying to be found. A business with three people on the payroll has no marketing department, and often no one sitting at a desk.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters as one occupation. Its Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the occupation at 510,600 jobs in 2025, with a median pay of $63,800 a year.
The agency projects employment to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035, which it describes as much faster than the average for all occupations. That works out to 34,500 added jobs over the decade.
The larger number is openings. The handbook projects about 42,000 openings a year on average, mostly to replace workers who move to other jobs or leave the labor force. By our arithmetic, growth alone accounts for about 3,450 jobs a year, so replacement drives most of the hiring.
The way into the trade runs through work rather than school. The handbook lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education, with training through an apprenticeship. A shop that hires an apprentice is also training one, on paying jobs.
Most of those jobs sit in one industry. The handbook says 65% of plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters work for plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, and another 8% are self-employed.
The work also does not keep office hours. The handbook notes that most in the occupation work full time, including nights and weekends, and that they are often on call to handle emergencies.
The Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees by industry and size. Its latest release covers 2023.
In the industry the government labels Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors, the national file lists 111,207 establishments. Of those, 64,871 had fewer than five employees. That is nearly six in 10 by our arithmetic.
Plumbing and HVAC contractor establishments by employee count, 2023.
About three in four had fewer than 10 employees, and nearly nine in 10 had fewer than 20. Only 1,656 establishments, about 1.5%, had 100 or more.
The same file counts 1,214,761 employees across the industry, an average of about 11 per establishment. The average is pulled up by a few large firms. With nearly six in 10 shops under five employees, the typical shop is much smaller than that.
One caution applies. This industry code groups plumbing contractors with heating and air-conditioning contractors, so the counts cover both trades together.
County Business Patterns leaves out businesses with no payroll. The Census Bureau counts those separately in its Nonemployer Statistics, which cover businesses with no paid employees that are subject to federal income tax.
For the same industry in 2023, the state files add up to 178,663 nonemployer businesses. The 2024 release, the most recent, rises to 189,085.
Plumbing and HVAC businesses with and without paid staff, 2023.
Put the two counts side by side and about 84% of the businesses in this trade had either no paid staff or fewer than five employees. The comparison is ours, and it comes with limits. The two series are separate counts, and in construction the nonemployer figures include any business with receipts of $1 or more, so part-time and side operations are in there too.
A shop of one to four people does its own marketing between jobs, if it does any. The owner is often the person on the ladder, under the sink and on the phone.
That makes the basics more useful than anything elaborate. Google’s own help pages say local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Distance, in Google’s description, is how far each business is from the customer who is searching. A shop cannot change that. Relevance and popularity are the parts a small business can work on.
For a small plumbing shop, a few steps cover most of what matters:
None of this requires a large budget. It requires an hour at the kitchen table and a habit of keeping the listing current.
Owners who want a fuller picture of the channels involved can read a breakdown of internet marketing for plumbers, which walks through local search, paid ads, content, email, video, social media, and the website itself.
The federal numbers point the same way. Demand for plumbers is projected to grow, tens of thousands of openings appear each year, and the businesses doing the work are mostly small.
For homeowners, that means most of the businesses on the list are small ones. For their owners, it means the listing, the reviews, and the phone often decide who gets the call.
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