Plumbing · Talent network
You run service calls out of a stocked van, most days six to nine stops. The work is drains, leaks, water heaters, fixtures, and the occasional emergency that reorders your whole afternoon. You are using a camera and a locator to find what you cannot see, running a sewer machine, cutting into walls carefully enough that the repair is not the expensive part. Diagnosis is most of it: water shows up a long way from where it escaped. You quote in front of the customer and often do the repair on the spot, so being able to explain what failed and what it costs is part of the job. Service is the customer-facing half of plumbing and the half most shops are shortest on.
Starting out in Houston that is $38K-52K, and journeyman runs $60K-85K. These are Houston market ranges, not a guarantee: where you land depends on your experience and the shop.
Plumbing is licence-gated and the licence is the point. Log hours as an apprentice, sit the journeyman exam, then qualify later for a master licence that lets you pull permits. Each step changes what you may legally do unsupervised, which is why the pay steps are so sharp.
TSBPE. Register as an apprentice day one, shops sponsor your hours.
Houston plumbing has an industrial edge most metros do not. The petrochemical corridor east of the city runs its own demand for pipework and keeps a share of the skilled labour pool permanently occupied, which pulls people out of residential and leaves service shops hiring. Water is the other defining fact: this is a flat, humid, flood-prone city, and major storms leave behind years of remediation, re-piping and slab work. Texas is one of the few states that licenses individual plumbers rather than only contractors, through the TSBPE, and you register as an apprentice on day one with your hours sponsored by the shop. That is a genuine advantage over a contractor-only state, because your hours are documented from your first week and they belong to you. UA Local 68 covers the area for the union route. Houston, Pasadena, Sugar Land, Katy and Baytown each support their own shops, and the metro is large enough that commute range is a real hiring filter.
Most of what we see is in Houston and Pasadena, with plumbing shops in Sugar Land and Katy and Baytown hiring too. Tell us where you are starting from and how far you will drive, and we only put you in front of shops inside that range.
Shops here staff Service / Repair, New Construction, Repipe / Remodel. Relocating to Houston? Many of our shops hire people moving in and help with the move.
Tell us what you are looking for. We put your profile in front of Houston shops that are hiring and set up the introduction, so you skip the resume black hole. You never pay a fee, and most people hear back within a day or two.
This is a talent-network listing. Applying adds you to the local plumbing pool we present to hiring shops in Houston. It does not guarantee an interview.
We connect you directly with local shops that are hiring. Free to apply, no fee ever.
Apply now → See the full Plumbing pay & licensing guide for Houston →