Lineman salary in Rapid City, SD
Updated September 27, 2026 with BLS data from May 2025
Linemen in the Rapid City, SD area earn a median of $95,220 a year, or $45.78 an hour, according to May 2025 BLS data. The highest-paid 10% make over $116,190 a year. Across all of South Dakota, the median is $97,310, so Rapid City pays 2% less than the state as a whole.
- Apprentice starting pay (estimate)
- $23.90/hr
- Jobs in this area
- 120
- After cost of living
- $106,800
- Median hourly pay
- $45.78/hr
- vs U.S. median
- 0%
- vs South Dakota median
- −2%
- Mean (average) pay
- $85,980 a year · $41.34 an hour
Pay by percentile
What linemen in Rapid City, SD 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.
| Percentile | Hourly | Yearly |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $23.90 | $49,720 |
| 25th percentile | $30.31 | $63,040 |
| Median (50th) | $45.78 | $95,220 |
| 75th percentile | $48.88 | $101,670 |
| 90th percentile | $55.86 | $116,190 |
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. BLS yearly figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours.
How Rapid City, SD compares
- Rapid City has the lowest lineman median of the 3 South Dakota metro areas with published pay.
- Linemen are more concentrated in the Rapid City area than nationally: 1.6 of every 1,000 jobs, 1.9 times the U.S. share.
Other South Dakota metro areas
Other trades in Rapid City, SD
Questions
- Do linemen make more in Rapid City or Sioux Falls?
- Sioux Falls pays more: the median is $95,220 in Rapid City and $102,600 in Sioux Falls, a 7% 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 39660 (Rapid City, SD). 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 (89.2, where the U.S. average is 100). Page updated September 27, 2026. How we calculate these figures