Trades recruiting in Fort Myers, FL

Lee County is its own metro, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, and it is the largest market in Southwest Florida. The BLS May 2025 wage survey counted about 2,110 HVAC mechanics and installers, 2,140 electricians, and 1,950 plumbers working in the metro. BLS QCEW counted 898 residential plumbing, HVAC, and electrical contractor locations in mid-2025, employing 6,359 people, plus 148 commercial ones.

Pay runs ahead of Tampa in HVAC and roughly even elsewhere. The Lee County HVAC median is $27.97 an hour against Tampa’s $24.30; electricians earn $27.85 against $27.62, and plumbers $24.85 against $25.00. A Tampa tech thinking about moving south would gain at the median in HVAC, and a Lee County plumber has more reason to look south to Naples ($27.80) than north.

Fast, and mostly in Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Lee County grew from 760,827 residents in April 2020 to 875,607 in July 2025, up 15.1%, and added 13,940 people in the last year, per the Census Bureau’s 2025 estimates. Cape Coral, the largest city in Southwest Florida at 236,264 residents, grew 21.8% since 2020; Fort Myers grew 17.5%. Hillsborough County grew 7.8% over the same period.

Growth this fast means two kinds of work at once: new homes in Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres, and along the I-75 corridor, and service demand from the people moving into them. The median Lee County home was built in 1997, against 1986 for the Tampa metro (ACS 2020-2024), so the housing stock is younger, with a large share of systems from the 2000s building boom.

They make the calendar lumpier. In 2024, 84,002 Lee County housing units, about 18.1% of the total, were held for seasonal or occasional use, per the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. In Hillsborough the share was 1.6%. A big seasonal population means demand climbs when owners return in the fall and winter, and that empty homes need AC and humidity control while they are away.

For hiring, that changes when a shop needs capacity. Searches that start in late summer let a new tech settle in before the season fills the board. We set search timelines around that calendar instead of treating Fort Myers like Tampa.

Ian made landfall on Cayo Costa in Lee County on September 28, 2022, as a category 4, with 10 to 15 feet of storm surge on Fort Myers Beach, per the National Hurricane Center’s report. At least 52,514 structures in Lee County were affected, 5,369 of them destroyed and 14,245 with major damage. Two years later, Milton pushed 4 to 6 feet of surge from south of Boca Grande through Bonita Beach.

Storms like these produce years of HVAC, electrical, and plumbing work, and they pull techs toward whoever is paying for rebuild crews. Independent shops that want to keep service techs need offers that hold up after the rebuild money moves on.

The Caloosahatchee River splits the metro, and the bridges shape every commute: a Cape Coral tech dispatched daily to Lehigh Acres has a very different week from one who works the Cape. We source from your side of the river first, then across Lee and into northern Collier and Charlotte, and every submittal says where the candidate lives relative to your service area.

Every candidate gets a human phone screen against a written scorecard, credential checks for the trade (EPA 608 for HVAC, license and card history for electrical and plumbing), and background and driving-record checks to your policy. On licensing, Lee County says it no longer offers local contractor licensing under Ordinance 23-09, so contractors there need a state license. Florida has no state journeyman license, and state law requires every county and city to honor a journeyman card issued by any other Florida county or city ([s. 489.1455](http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0400-0499/0489/Sections/0489.1455.html), [s. 489.5335](http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0400-0499/0489/Sections/0489.5335.html)).