Hiring Your First Electrician

Decide what the first hire will do

Choose the role first. In electrical work it settles more than pay: it settles whose license covers the work and whether the new person can ever run a job without you.

If the phone rings unanswered while you're fishing wire through an attic, you need a licensed journeyman: the hire who can run a second truck. If you keep turning down rough-ins and service upgrades because they take two people, an apprentice gets you through them faster and can grow into the journeyman you'll need later. But an apprentice makes your truck faster; it doesn't give you a second one. Until your board says otherwise, assume an apprentice can't do electrical work without a licensed electrician supervising.

The license ladder (apprentice, journeyman, master) and your business's own license are covered in how to start an electrical contracting business.

Ask your board how supervision works

Supervision rules decide what your first hire may do on day one, and they differ by state (or by city or county, where licensing is local). Before you post the job, ask:

• Must an apprentice register or carry a trainee card before the first day, and who files it?
• Where does electrical work start? Does a helper who only carries material or cleans up need to register, and does pulling cable count?
• What counts as supervision: a licensed electrician on the same site, within sight, or responsible from elsewhere?
• Is there a limit on how many apprentices one licensed electrician may supervise, and is it counted per electrician, per site or per company?
• May a journeyman run jobs alone for my business, or must a master or my qualifying license holder be responsible for each one?
• Who may pull a building permit and meet the inspector?
• What records prove an apprentice's hours for the journeyman exam, and who signs them?

Get the answers from the board itself, in writing if you can. Rules change, and the work goes out under your license.

Supervision rules set the order of your hires

These rules, not your budget, can decide who you hire next. Massachusetts, for example, allows a journeyman electrician no more than one apprentice under their direct supervision or employ ¹. Your state's limit may be different, or counted differently.

Example: Suppose your board requires a licensed electrician on site whenever an apprentice works and allows one apprentice per licensed electrician (made-up rules; get the real ones from your board). With one apprentice, you can't leave a rough-in for a no-power call without stopping the rough-in. A second apprentice doesn't help: while you're the only licensed electrician, only one of them can work at a time. A journeyman is the hire that lets two jobs run at once.

Build those rules into dispatch so an apprentice never ends up alone because the schedule got tight. Log each apprentice's hours weekly, with the type of work (service, rough-in, trim, panels) and the supervising electrician's signature, so the exam application doesn't rely on memory.

Verify every license with the board

A license card can be expired, suspended or narrower than it looks. Before you make an offer, search the electrical board's online lookup (or call the board) with the name and number printed on the card, and confirm:

• Level and scope: journeyman, master, residential or a limited specialty, and whether it covers the work you'll assign. A low-voltage or limited license may not cover the services, feeders and branch circuits a residential shop runs every day.
• Status: active, not suspended or expired, and any disciplinary history the board publishes.
• Where it's valid: your state, or your city or county where licensing is local.
• Renewal: the expiration date and any continuing education due first. Many states tie renewal to coursework on code changes, so put the date on your calendar too.

Check an apprentice's registration the same way where your state requires one. Keep each lookup in the employee file and repeat it after every renewal; a lapse is easier to catch then than at a final inspection.

Registered apprenticeship: train your own journeymen

If licensed journeymen are hard to find, train one. A registered apprenticeship is a program validated by the U.S. Department of Labor or a State Apprenticeship Agency that pairs paid work under an experienced mentor with classroom instruction and progressive wage increases, and ends in a nationally recognized credential ².

You don't have to build one. Electrical programs are offered through joint union and contractor committees, contractor association chapters, and technical and community colleges. Search apprenticeship.gov, the Department of Labor's apprenticeship site, or ask your state apprenticeship agency which programs near you take a small shop as a participating employer.

Don't confuse the program with the apprentice registration your licensing board may require: your state may require one, both or neither. Ask the board whether a registered program's hours and classes count toward the journeyman exam, and whether the program handles board registration for you.

Write the deal into the offer letter: tuition and books, paid or unpaid class time, the wage steps, and a rotation through service calls, rough-in and trim, panel changes and troubleshooting, so the apprentice's log covers what their exam application asks about. If you want training costs repaid when someone leaves early, have an employment lawyer draft that clause.

Train for electrical safety before the first panel

Train before the first live panel, whatever the résumé says. Two sets of rules apply:

• OSHA's electrical standards are the legal requirements. Depending on the work, OSHA's construction or general industry rules apply, and both cover training and safe work practices around energized equipment.
• NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, is the consensus standard for an electrical safety program: creating an electrically safe work condition, deciding when energized work is justified, assessing shock and arc flash risk, and choosing protective equipment. General contractors and commercial customers may ask for proof your crew is trained to it.

Both rely on the idea of a qualified person: someone trained to recognize and avoid the electrical hazards of specific equipment and tasks. Qualification goes task by task. A journeyman license shows code knowledge, not training in the hazards of every job, and an apprentice takes on energized tasks only as far as their training and your supervision allow. Write down which energized tasks each person may do.

Then teach these house rules on your own equipment:

1. De-energized by default. Energized work is limited to the tasks on that list, such as voltage testing while troubleshooting, with the protective equipment you've set for each. Anything else live needs your approval and a plan.
2. One person, one lock. Whoever works on a circuit locks and tags its breaker or disconnect, and only that person removes the lock.
3. Test before touch. Check the meter on a known live source, test the circuit, then check the meter again.
4. Know what stays live. Turning off the main doesn't de-energize the conductors feeding it; on a service panel they stay live until power is cut ahead of the panel, usually by the utility. Generators, solar and batteries can feed a circuit backward, so ask about them before opening anything, and treat a neutral shared by two circuits as live until both are off.
5. Rated gear. Voltage-rated rubber gloves with leather protectors, plus arc-rated clothing and face protection where your risk assessment calls for them. Inspect gloves before each use and keep up their periodic electrical retests.

Record each session (date, topics, trainer, the hire's signature), and retrain after a change in equipment or procedures, a near miss, or a skipped step. If you aren't confident teaching this, pay for a formal NFPA 70E course and add your own procedures. OSHA's On-Site Consultation Program also gives small businesses free, confidential safety help, separate from enforcement.

What to pay a first electrician

Set pay from local numbers: the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage estimates for electricians in your state and metro area, job posts from nearby shops, and the wage schedule of any apprenticeship program you're considering. For a national reference point, the median wage for electricians was $63,190 a year in May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent earning less than $42,640 and the highest 10 percent more than $108,510 ³. BLS projects electrician employment to grow 9 percent from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average ³, so expect to compete for experienced hires. A journeyman who can run calls alone will expect the middle of your local range or more; an apprentice starts near the bottom and steps up with hours and classes.

Put the electrical extras in writing: who takes outage calls, storm-damaged service masts and generator emergencies on nights and weekends, and what a call-out pays; who pays for license renewals, continuing education and code books; and which tools and protective gear you supply.

Example: Say you hire a journeyman at $35 an hour for 2,000 paid hours a year: $70,000 in wages. Add round placeholder figures: $14,000 for payroll taxes, workers' comp and benefits, $13,000 for the van, fuel and insurance, and $3,000 for tools, protective gear, a phone and license renewals. That's $100,000 a year. If 1,600 of those hours are billable (the rest goes to drive time, supply runs, permit paperwork and waiting on inspectors and utility crews), each billable hour must recover $62.50 of electrician cost before materials, overhead or profit.

An apprentice's cost rides on your hours instead.

Example: Say an apprentice costs $50,000 a year all in (another placeholder), or $31.25 for each of 1,600 working hours. A rough-in that takes you 30 hours alone takes the two of you 20. That uses 20 apprentice hours ($625) and frees 10 of yours. The hire pays off only if you fill those 10 hours with billable work worth more than $625.

Run your real numbers through how to set your labor rate; how to price electrical jobs shows how crew mix carries that cost into device, panel and EV charger prices.

Workers' comp and employee status

Each state sets its own workers' comp rules, including when you must carry it and whether owners are covered. Before you post the job, walk your agent through what the hire will really do: service calls, new construction, service upgrades, commercial work, trenching, lifts and tall ladders. Carriers price electrical work by classification, so a vague description can mean a premium that changes at audit. See workers' compensation insurance for the basics.

Treat the hire as an employee. Someone who works the jobs you dispatch, in your van, under your license and permits, is working under your control, and a 1099 doesn't change that. The independent contractor entry explains the IRS view; your state may apply its own test, so have a CPA or employment lawyer review any contractor arrangement. To sub out work to another electrician, first ask your board whether they need their own contractor license and whose license the permit goes under.

Run a paid working interview

An exam proves someone knows the code book. A paid day on your jobs shows whether they kill the power before opening a panel. Plan a day with a service call, device work and a panel, confirm with your agent that a working interview is covered, and tell the candidate what you'll watch:

Questions someone with real field time answers without hesitating:

• Half the kitchen receptacles are dead and no breaker has tripped. Where do you start?
• What's still live in a panel with the main off?
• You find two circuits sharing a neutral. What do you check before you start?
• Tell me about a failed inspection or a callback on your work, and what you changed afterward.

An apprentice candidate won't pass that table yet. Watch instead for what you can't train: showing up on time, following directions exactly, asking before touching anything that might be live, and working in a hot attic without complaint.

Tools, the van and protective gear

Decide before day one who owns what. One workable split: the electrician brings hand tools (screwdrivers, linesman's pliers, strippers, a tape measure), and the shop owns the meters and testers it requires, plus drills, fish tapes, benders, fiberglass ladders and all protective equipment. Owning the test equipment means you choose meters rated for the panels and services you work on and know they're maintained. Before asking anyone to bring their own gloves or arc-rated clothing, read OSHA's rules on employer-paid protective equipment, and check wage rules before deducting a lost tool from a paycheck.

For the van, ask your commercial auto insurer what it needs before a new driver gets the keys. Keep a stock list (cable in your common sizes, breakers for the panel brands you see most, boxes, devices, connectors) and a restock routine, and decide whether the hire buys on your supply house account, with a job name on every ticket, or not at all. Wire is expensive; every spool should land on a job.

The first 90 days

Write a 90-day plan for a licensed hire and share it on day one:

1. Weeks 1 and 2: ride with you. Safety rules first, signed off, then your call flow, price book and closeout: photos, panel directory, notes.
2. Weeks 3 to 6: device and circuit work alone, checked through photos.
3. Weeks 7 to 12: troubleshooting, panel changes and service upgrades, with you a phone call away. Meet the inspector together on the first few permits, and review every failed inspection and callback.

An apprentice's plan runs longer, stays supervised throughout and follows the rotation in their offer letter.

Put panel photos, job notes and permit numbers in one place you both check, whether that's a shared folder, a group chat or chat-first field service software such as Redline. An electrician who reads the last visit's notes before knocking already knows which breaker feeds the garage.