Who makes Skilled Wages
A master electrician who couldn't find a straight answer on what the trades pay.
The person
Skilled Wages is built by Matt Powers, a licensed master electrician and the founder of Virtue Solar in Charlottesville, Virginia. He started in solar in 2012 and formed Virtue Solar in 2015 as a one-man shop; it has since grown into one of the larger solar contractors in Virginia.
Virtue Solar has used prevailing wage rates when bidding public work, and when it came to setting pay, he never found a good source for what a competitive salary range actually looks like. This site is the attempt: the public numbers, pulled into one place, with the range, the place and the date behind each figure.
The pages are generated from federal data by scripts, not reviewed one by one. The short passages marked "From the field" are his own, so you can tell them apart from the numbers. Outside work: sustainability, the outdoors, climbing, local food and music.
What the site is for
Three readers, mostly: people deciding whether to enter a trade, tradespeople checking whether their pay is in line with the local range, and contractors or estimators who need the county prevailing wage with a determination number to cite. Each page tries to answer all three at once.
Rules the site follows
- Every figure carries its source and the date of the data.
- Generated text states numbers; it does not tell you what to think about them.
- Union and prevailing rates always link to the official determination on SAM.gov. This site is a reference, not the official text.
- No self-reported salaries, no lead forms, no "apply now" buttons. The site is supported by ordinary display advertising.
- When a data source changes or breaks, the change log says so.
Data
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Employment Projections, CPI), SAM.gov Davis-Bacon wage determinations, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities, and U.S. Census Bureau boundaries. All public domain. Details on the methodology page.