Plumber salary by country
United StatesUSA
Of the 5 countries that publish pay for this job, the United States pays a plumber the most in real terms — about 2.2× what the same job is worth in Singapore.
SOURCE·National statistics agencies (7 countries)·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The same wage, read twice, in 5 countries
Each rule below is one country's median for this job, measured against the same US-dollar scale. The hollow marker is what the wage converts to at the exchange rate. The solid marker is what it buys at home. The hatched span is the distance between those two answers, and the multiple at the right is how far apart they are. Singapore disagrees with itself the most: $22,281 converted, $28,130 spent locally.
At the exchange rate At local prices The disagreement
Read the spans, not the markers. A country whose two readings sit almost on top of each other has a currency priced roughly in line with its own cost of living; a long hatched span means the wage is worth far more at home than it looks on a conversion table.
SOURCE·European Central Bank reference rates (via Frankfurter) and World Bank PPP conversion factor PA.NUS.PRVT.PP·FX 2026-07-29·REVIEWED PPP 2025
How one job is set beside itself in seven statistical systems
- Each country is joined to this comparison by hand, and only when its own classification contains a genuinely equivalent occupation. SOC, SOC2020, NOC, ANZSCO and ISCO-08 do not map mechanically, and pretending they do is how cross-country salary comparisons go wrong.
- The national median is taken as the agency published it, in local currency, on that agency's own reference period. Nothing is rebased, smoothed or estimated.
- It is then read twice: divided by the European Central Bank reference rate, and divided by the World Bank purchasing-power conversion factor for that country.
- Countries are ranked on the price-adjusted reading, because that is the one that describes a life rather than a transfer. The exchange-rate reading is printed beside it, never instead of it.
- Countries measure pay differently, and the differences are larger than most of the gaps on this page: Australia's figure comes from tax returns and includes part-year workers, the American one from an employer payroll survey of full-time-equivalent jobs. Treat a few per cent as instrument, not wage.
converted = local median / FX(local -> USD) adjusted = local median / PPP(country) rank = order by adjusted, descending
Side by side
| Country | Local median | At the exchange rate | At local prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| USAUnited States | $62,970 | $62,970 | $62,970 |
| AUSAustralia | $89,052 | $61,803 | $60,803 |
| GBRUnited Kingdom | £37,881 | $50,340 | $53,998 |
| CANCanada | $67,184 | $47,631 | $53,300 |
| SGPSingapore | $28,800 | $22,281 | $28,130 |
Seven agencies · JUL 2026
What each agency actually measured
| Country | What the figure is | Series & period |
|---|---|---|
| USAUnited States | Employer payroll survey of ~1.1m establishments | US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics · MAY 2024 |
| AUSAustralia | Individual tax returns — includes part-year and part-time filers | Australian Taxation Office Taxation Statistics, Table 15 · 2023-24 |
| GBRUnited Kingdom | 1% sample of PAYE records, full-time employees | Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14 · 2025 PROVISIONAL |
| CANCanada | 2021 Census wage distributions by NOC and economic region | Employment and Social Development Canada Job Bank wage data · 2025 |
| SGPSingapore | Full-time resident employees, private establishments with 25+ staff | Singapore Ministry of Manpower Occupational Wage Survey · JUN 2024 |
Seven agencies, seven instruments, seven reference periods nearly two years apart end to end. That is the honest caveat on every comparison here, and it is why this table is on the page rather than in a footnote.
Not shown
NZLNew Zealand, INDIndia do not publish a directly comparable figure for this occupation — either it is folded into a broader group, or the statistical agency suppressed it. We leave it out rather than substitute a near-enough occupation.
What people ask next
- Which country pays a plumber the most?
- Adjusted for what money buys locally, the United States — $62,970 a year, about 2.2 times what the same job is worth in Singapore. At the exchange rate the ranking is different, which is the point of showing both.
- Why does the ranking change between the two dollar columns?
- Because they measure different things. The exchange-rate column is what the wage converts to if the money leaves the country; the price-adjusted column is what it buys where it was earned. Currencies are priced by trade and capital flows, not by the cost of rent and food.
- Are these the same job in every country?
- They are the nearest genuinely equivalent occupation in each country's own classification, matched by hand rather than mechanically. Where no equivalent exists the country is left out rather than substituted.
