How many HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors are in each Florida metro?

How many trades contractors does Florida have?

Florida had 18,787 private plumbing, HVAC, and electrical contractor locations in the second quarter of 2025: 15,131 residential and 3,656 commercial. BLS counts them in four categories, because it splits each trade group into residential and nonresidential work. Plumbing and HVAC share one category; BLS does not count HVAC shops separately.

Source: BLS QCEW, Florida, private ownership, second quarter 2025, NAICS 238221, 238222, 238211, and 238212. Average weekly pay covers every worker at those businesses, office staff included, so it is not a technician wage. Job growth compares June 2025 with June 2024.

Two patterns stand out. Residential shops are far more numerous but much smaller: a residential plumbing and HVAC location averaged about 7 workers statewide, a commercial one about 22. And commercial employment grew faster than residential in both trade groups over the year, with commercial electrical leading at 3.8%.

Which Florida metros have the most residential trades shops?

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro leads with 4,035 residential plumbing, HVAC, and electrical contractor locations, nearly double Tampa’s 2,217. Orlando is third with 1,364. Southwest Florida, counted as three metros by BLS, adds up to 2,160 residential locations across Cape Coral-Fort Myers, North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, and Naples-Marco Island, close to Tampa’s total.

Source: BLS QCEW, second quarter 2025, private ownership, plumbing/HVAC and electrical contractors combined. "Not published" means BLS withheld at least one cell to protect employer confidentiality, so a combined total would be wrong. Smaller metros (Tallahassee, Punta Gorda, Panama City, Gainesville, and others) are left off for space.

Where is commercial contracting concentrated?

Commercial trades work concentrates in Florida’s three largest metros: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach (19,026 commercial contractor jobs), Orlando (13,839), and Tampa (12,249). Orlando is the outlier among large metros, with more people working for commercial contractors than residential ones (13,839 vs. 11,627). In Southwest Florida the balance runs the other way: Naples has 3,936 residential contractor jobs and 612 commercial.

Commercial firms are also much larger per location. In the Tampa metro, a commercial plumbing and HVAC location averages about 22 workers (5,635 jobs across 260 locations) against about 8 for a residential one (10,980 across 1,430). For recruiting, that means fewer commercial clients, each hiring more often, and more of them with an HR department or in-house recruiter. Our commercial HVAC recruiting page covers how those searches differ.

How many HVAC techs, plumbers, and electricians work in each metro?

The Miami metro employs the most trades techs in Florida, about 28,060 HVAC mechanics, plumbers, and electricians combined, followed by Tampa (17,440) and Orlando (16,150), per the BLS May 2025 wage survey. These counts cover every employer, including hospitals, schools, and property managers, not just contractors, and they leave out the self-employed.

Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025, annual median wage, occupations 49-9021 (HVAC mechanics and installers), 47-2152 (plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters), and 47-2111 (electricians).

What do these numbers mean for a shop that is hiring?

Pay gaps between nearby metros are real, and techs notice them. Tampa’s HVAC median of $50,540 is the lowest among Florida’s large metros and about $8,500 below the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota metro next door ($59,070). A Tampa shop paying the local median is competing against higher medians an hour’s drive south; a Sarasota shop can recruit Tampa techs with a raise that still sits near its own median. This is our reading of the federal data, not a prediction for any one tech.

• Residential shops are the majority of buyers in every metro, and most have no HR department, which is why outside recruiting fits them. See how much a trades recruiter costs.
• Commercial firms are fewer and larger. Orlando, Tampa, and the Miami metro hold most of the state’s commercial contractor jobs.
• Medians are a floor for negotiation, not a ceiling. Performance pay moves top service techs well above them; our Florida HVAC salary guide shows how.
• Local rules differ by county even inside one metro, from journeyman cards to permitting. Our Florida license guide covers what to verify.

We recruit in these markets from our Tampa headquarters, including Tampa, Sarasota, Lakeland, Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami, Fort Myers, and Naples. Every city page carries its own metro pay data.

How were these numbers built?

• Contractor counts come from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which is built from the unemployment insurance records nearly every employer files. We used the second quarter of 2025, the newest quarter with Florida metro detail published when we pulled the data on October 28, 2026.
• "Locations" are establishments, not companies. A shop with three branches counts three times, and a one-person shop with no employees may not appear at all.
• Jobs are the June 2025 employment count. Average weekly pay is total wages divided across every worker at those businesses for the quarter.
• Metros follow federal definitions. The Tampa metro is Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando counties; Manatee County is counted in North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota.
• Tech headcounts and medians come from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey, May 2025, the newest release. We refresh this page when either source publishes new data.

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