TradeSalary

Lineman salary in Watertown, NY

Updated September 27, 2026 with BLS data from May 2025

Linemen in the Watertown–Fort Drum, NY area earn a median of $104,410 a year, or $50.20 an hour, according to May 2025 BLS data. The highest-paid 10% make over $134,290 a year. Across all of New York, the median is $121,280, so Watertown pays 14% less than the state as a whole.

Median yearly pay$104,410
Bottom 10% under$67,520Top 10% over$134,290
Apprentice starting pay (estimate)
$32.46/hr
Jobs in this area
50
After cost of living
$119,070
Median hourly pay
$50.20/hr
vs U.S. median
+10%
vs New York median
−14%
Mean (average) pay
$103,280 a year · $49.66 an hour
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (area 48060, Watertown-Fort Drum, NY). Excludes self-employed linemen. Cost of living: BEA Regional Price Parities, 2024. *Starting pay is estimated from the 10th percentile; BLS does not report pay by license level.

Pay by percentile

What linemen in Watertown, NY earn at each point of the pay range, May 2025: 10% earn less than the 10th percentile, half earn less than the median, and 10% earn more than the 90th.

PercentileHourlyYearly
10th percentile$32.46$67,520
25th percentile$38.73$80,550
Median (50th)$50.20$104,410
75th percentile$58.38$121,430
90th percentile$64.56$134,290

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. BLS yearly figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours.

How Watertown, NY compares

  • Watertown has the lowest lineman median of the 9 New York metro areas with published pay.
  • Linemen are more concentrated in the Watertown area than nationally: 1.2 of every 1,000 jobs, 1.4 times the U.S. share.

Other New York metro areas

Other trades in Watertown, NY

Questions

Do linemen make more in Watertown or Albany?
Albany pays more: the median is $104,410 in Watertown and $127,580 in Albany, a 18% difference.

About this data

Wages are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025, occupation 49-9051 (Electrical Power-Line Installers and Repairers), area code 48060 (Watertown-Fort Drum, NY). BLS counts wage and salary workers only, so self-employed linemen and business owners aren't included. The cost-of-living figure divides the median by the Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parity for 2024 (87.7, where the U.S. average is 100). Page updated September 27, 2026. How we calculate these figures