What the Road Pays: Traveling Trades Demand Report – September 2026

By RoadTrades · September 1, 2026 · 1 min read

The monthly read of the U.S. traveling-trades market, built from our own index of open roles across our tracked sources — what traveling work is advertising by trade, where the hiring is heaviest, and how often the job comes with per diem, the number that decides whether a road job is worth the drive.

Two things make these figures different from a government wage survey. First, they are advertised rates — what employers are offering right now to fill a job, not an average of wages already paid. Second, they separate traveling work from local shop work, which is the split a traveler actually lives on and the one a blended survey can never show.

21,480Open roles tracked

29Trades

50States

$120Median per diem / day

68Sources

What traveling work is advertising

Median advertised hourly rate on TRAVELING openings — local shop work excluded. Advertised, not guaranteed pay; each figure is a median over the counted sources.

Shipfitter$4525 sources

Crane Operator$4336 sources

QA/QC Inspector$4219 sources

Electrician$40332 sources

Plumber$4039 sources

Machinist$3866 sources

Insulator$36.515 sources

Equipment Operator$3535 sources

HVAC Tech$3563 sources

Pipefitter$35111 sources

Driver$33.585 sources

Carpenter$3236 sources

The travel premium

What traveling openings advertise OVER the whole market for the same trade — the number a wage survey cannot show, because surveys blend shop work in. Medians of live sources.

QA/QC Inspector+$16+62%

Machinist+$8+27%

Electrician+$6+18%

Plumber+$6+18%

Equipment Operator+$6+21%

Welder+$6+23%

Driver+$5.5+20%

Industrial Mechanic+$4+14%

The zero rows prove the measure: shipfitter, pipefitter show no premium — those trades have almost no local-shop market, so the whole population already prices at road rates. The premium appears exactly where a big local market exists to leave behind.

Where the work is

Open roles tracked, by state — top 8.

Texas2,308

Florida1,163

California1,091

Pennsylvania936

Ohio934

Wisconsin810

North Carolina735

Virginia720

Most likely to come with per diem

Share of a trade’s openings that name per diem.

Crane Operator33%

Shipfitter29%

Millwright27%

Solar Tech22%

Pipefitter21%

Sheet Metal18%

Ironworker18%

Electrician16%

The per-diem picture

$120Median advertised per diem, per day

1,406 of the openings we track name a per diem — 1,127 with a dollar figure — the number most boards leave buried in a paragraph. 81% land between $75 and $200 a day, clustered in the road trades: crane, ship, mill, iron and pipe. For a traveler that stipend is often a five-figure line on the year — the difference between two offers quoting the same hourly rate.

How this is measured. Figures are read from public job postings across 68 tracked sources, refreshed continuously, and reflect advertised pay and per diem — what employers are offering right now, not a government survey of wages already paid. Every median rests on at least five priced traveling sources; hourly figures exclude salaried roles and wide catch-all ranges. Traveling means the opening carries per diem or comes from a travel-work source. Per-diem values outside the typical $75–$200 band are re-checked against the original posting before they are trusted. Per diem is a daily allowance that varies by assignment and is not guaranteed.

Every job posted on RoadTrades carries its pay and per diem as structured data — here is what that means and why postings here go further. Recruiters can measure an offer against the live going rate for their trade and state with a Market Intelligence report, and tradespeople can weigh any offer’s real hourly value with the free blended rate calculator. The live board is at roadtrades.com/jobs.

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