Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Percentiles answer the question a single average cannot: where would a given Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners offer sit among all 29,050 workers doing this job? The survey top-codes at $239,200+ and withholds unreliable cells, shown as n/p in the table.

Employment and concentration

The occupation employed 29,050 people in May 2024, 0.02% of every job BLS counted. California is the largest employer at 2,850 jobs, and the leading three states between them hold 24.1% of the workforce. Concentration peaks in Montana, whose location quotient of 3.60 says this work is 3.60 times as dense there as it is nationwide.

The spread matters as much as the center. Earners at the 90th percentile make $73,670, which is 2.0 times the $36,500 at the 10th, a difference of $37,170 annually. Because the mean wage ($52,730) sits above the median ($49,140), a typical offer should be judged against the median and the 25th to 75th percentile band, not the mean.

Pay by state

The state spread for Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners runs from the $63,420 median in New Jersey down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in California (2,850 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Septic Tank Servicers and Sewer Pipe Cleaners stands number 486 by employment and number 542 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Construction and Extraction Occupations, the group median wage is $54,660 across 60 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 10% less than its group median, and it supplies 0.5% of the group's 6,361,730 jobs. In 22 of the 49 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $49,140, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 1,090 jobs, 3.8% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 147 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $55,280 a year, against $69,870 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $4,095 a month before tax, $1,890 biweekly, $945 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($42,700) to the 75th ($60,320) is worth $17,620 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $54,054 would sit between the median ($49,140) and the 75th percentile ($60,320), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $42,700, is $6,440 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Construction and Extraction Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Sheet Metal Workers, Drywall and Ceiling Tile Installers, Structural Iron and Steel Workers, Helpers--Electricians, Glaziers, Brickmasons and Blockmasons. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.