SALT LAKE CITY — Few states are adding skilled trades workers as fast as Utah. A new national report ranks Utah second in the country for skilled trades employment growth, with jobs up 19.9% from 2019 to 2025. Only Arizona grew faster.
The report comes from the Alliance for America's Skilled Trades, a coalition formed this year by BlackRock, Carhartt, Ford Motor Company and Google, which more than a dozen other companies have since joined. Its growth figures are based on federal Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational employment data.
How Utah compares
The West dominates the list. All five of the fastest-growing states are Western, and three of Utah's neighbors, Arizona, Idaho and Nevada, join it in the top five.
Rank | State | Growth, 2019–2025 |
|---|---|---|
1 | Arizona | 22.6% |
2 | Utah | 19.9% |
3 | Alaska | 16.8% |
4 | Idaho | 16.3% |
5 | Nevada | 12.0% |
18 | Montana | 5.8% |
Not every state is growing. Sixteen states lost skilled trades workers over the same period.
Utah by the numbers
The report counts 242,120 skilled trades workers in Utah. It also gives each state a "demand pressure" score based on projected and actual demand, the mix of occupations and wage trends. Utah scored 71, eighth highest of 51. Its neighbors face even more pressure: Idaho ranked fourth at 78 and Montana seventh at 73.
A high score signals that employer demand remains strong even after years of fast growth.
The report's definition of skilled trades is broad. It covers 124 occupations, including core building trades such as electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, carpenters, roofers and sheet metal workers, along with maintenance technicians, machinists, welders, transportation workers and engineering technicians.
The construction trades
Construction makes up a big share of that workforce. About 111,470 Utahns worked in construction and extraction jobs in May 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures compiled by Utah State University's Utah Women & Leadership Project in an April 2026 research brief.
Occupation | Utah workers, May 2024 |
|---|---|
Construction laborers | 22,230 |
Carpenters | 14,040 |
Electricians | 11,360 |
Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | 6,770 |
HVAC mechanics | 5,370 |
Welders, cutters and brazers | 4,230 |
Painters | 3,350 |
Brick and block masons | 1,810 |
The pay gap
Despite strong demand, Utah construction pay has trailed the rest of the country. According to the USU brief, 2023 average annual wages in Utah were below national averages for most of the major trades:
Occupation | Utah | U.S. |
|---|---|---|
All construction and extraction | $57,770 | $63,920 |
Electricians | $63,010 | $69,630 |
Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters | $62,600 | $69,940 |
Carpenters | $54,620 | $64,040 |
Construction laborers | $47,750 | $51,260 |
Painters | $46,270 | $53,710 |
Welders | $57,200 | $55,100 |
Welders were the only trade in the comparison where Utah paid more than the national average.
That gap matters for recruiting. Utah contractors are competing for workers in a region where Idaho and Arizona are also growing fast and neighboring states face high demand of their own.
The pipeline
Utah had 4,731 active registered apprentices across all industries in 2024, according to the state's Apprenticeship Utah annual report, as cited in the USU brief. Women made up about 6% of those apprentices.
The pipeline starts earlier, too. In the 2023–2024 school year, 11,773 Utah high school students took construction and structural systems courses, and about 30% of them were women.
New training capacity is on the way. Universal Technical Institute is opening its first Utah campus in West Jordan in 2027. The 113,000-square-foot school is designed for more than 3,000 students at full capacity and will teach HVACR, welding, electrical and industrial maintenance, robotics and automation, and automotive, diesel and aviation maintenance. The company pointed to growth in Utah's aerospace, defense and advanced manufacturing sectors and to employers struggling to fill hands-on technical jobs along the Wasatch Front.
The national shortage
Utah's growth comes against a national shortfall. The Alliance's report finds that training programs nationwide produce about 55 workers for every 100 employers need. More than 18 million Americans work in the skilled trades, and the report projects about 1.7 million trades job openings every year through 2035.
The report calls for better-quality training programs, stronger links between schools, training providers and employers, better guidance into trade careers, and workforce spending planned around when and where demand will actually hit.
What to watch
Utah's ranking shows the state is drawing and training trades workers faster than almost anyone. The open questions are whether that pace can keep up with demand, and whether Utah wages close the gap with national averages as competition for workers across the Mountain West heats up.