Should I require a journeyman license in a plumber job post?

Require exactly what your state and your insurance require for the work, and no more. Most states license plumbers in tiers — apprentice, journeyman, master — and the rules vary a lot by state and sometimes by city. If a licensed journeyman is legally required to run calls solo in your area, say so plainly. If an experienced tradesman working under your master's license is acceptable, say that instead, because it roughly doubles your applicant pool.

What is the difference between hiring a service plumber and a new-construction plumber?

They are different hires. Service plumbers diagnose problems in occupied homes, talk to stressed customers, and sell the repair; new-construction plumbers rough-in and top-out to plans, on schedule, on job sites. The skills overlap less than owners expect, and a post that doesn't say which one you mean wastes everyone's time. Put it in the title.

Should a plumber job post mention on-call duty?

Yes, specifically. Plumbing is the emergency trade — burst pipes and sewage backups do not wait for business hours, and every service plumber knows it. State the rotation ("on-call one week in five") and what it pays. Vague "some on-call required" language reads as "every weekend," and hiding a heavy rotation just converts a hiring problem into a month-three resignation.

Why is my plumber job post not getting applicants?

Usual causes, in order: no pay range, a below-market range, a title that doesn't say service or new-construction, requiring a master license for journeyman work, and slow follow-up when someone does apply. With plumbers, the license mismatch is the most common self-inflicted wound — check what tier the work legally requires before you post.

Plumber job description template (copy, paste, edit, post)

Q: What should a plumber job description include?

A title that names the license tier and the type of work (service vs new-construction), a real pay range, the actual day-to-day duties, your state's license requirement, driver's-license and physical requirements, an honest description of the on-call rotation, and the benefits plumbers actually compare: truck, tools, phone, and paid training. Pay range first — it is the thing candidates filter on.

What should a plumber job description include?

A good plumber job description names the work in the title (service or new-construction, and the license tier), leads with a real pay range, requires only the license your state actually mandates for the work, tells the truth about on-call, and sells what plumbers weigh a job on: truck, tools, training, and respect for their time. Below is a complete template you can copy, edit, and post today, followed by the plumbing-specific decisions that make it work. If you're hiring HVAC instead, we built the same thing for that trade: the HVAC technician job description template, which also covers the section-by-section reasoning that applies to any trades post.

The template

Copy this, replace the bracketed parts, delete what doesn't apply.

Job Title: Service Plumber — [Journeyman] — [City, State]

Pay: $[30]–$[42]/hour depending on experience and license, plus
[spiffs/performance bonuses/sign-on bonus]. Paid weekly.

Schedule: [Monday–Friday, 7:30am–4:30pm]. On-call rotation
[1 week in 5], with [on-call pay/overtime] when it happens. Emergency
calls are real in this trade — we staff the rotation so it's fair.

About the work:
[Company Name] is a [residential/commercial] plumbing company serving
[service area]. We run [X] trucks and we're adding a plumber because
[demand is up / we're growing / a senior plumber moved into a lead
role]. This is a [service / repair-and-remodel / new-construction]
position — [no new-construction rough-in / no service calls],
so you know what you're signing up for.

What you'll do:
- Diagnose and repair residential plumbing: water heaters, drain
  lines, fixtures, gas lines, repipes
- Run [4–6] service calls a day from a dispatched schedule
- Explain findings and options to homeowners in plain language,
  with upfront pricing from our pricebook
- Document work, photos, and recommendations in [software name]
- Keep your truck stocked, clean, and organized
- [Mentor an apprentice — we run a registered apprenticeship]

What you need:
- [State] [journeyman] plumbing license in good standing
  [OR: 4+ years plumbing experience working under a master's license]
- [3+] years of residential service experience
- Valid driver's license with an insurable driving record
- Able to lift [75] lbs, work in crawl spaces, trenches, and attics
- Comfortable talking with homeowners and standing behind your work

Nice to have (not required):
- [Master license / gas fitting endorsement / backflow tester
  certification / med-gas certification]
- Drain machine, jetter, and camera experience
- [Tankless / well systems / septic] experience

What you get:
- Take-home truck, gas card, and company phone/tablet
- [Medical/dental/vision], [401(k) + match], [PTO days] PTO + paid
  holidays
- Paid training, license renewal, and continuing-education costs
- Tool account / tool allowance of $[X]/year
- No overnight travel; home every night

How to apply:
[Apply link or phone number.] We respond to every applicant within
[one business day]. No resume handy? Text us at [number] and we'll
take it from there.

That's a post a working plumber can read on a phone between calls and know what it pays, what the work is, what license it takes, and how bad the on-call is. Most plumber posts leave at least two of those four as a surprise, and surprises are why posts go quiet.

The plumbing-specific decisions

The general craft of a trades job post — pay range first, duties as a real day, requirements as the shortest defensible list, benefits techs actually compare — is covered in the HVAC version and applies here word for word. What follows is what's different about plumbing.

License tier: the filter that silently kills plumber posts

Plumbing licensure is tiered — apprentice, journeyman, master — and regulated state by state, sometimes city by city. That creates a mistake HVAC posts can't make: requiring a higher tier than the work needs.

Work out, before you write the post, what the law in your area actually requires for a tech running residential service calls solo. Then require exactly that. If journeyman is the legal bar, don't ask for a master "to be safe" — masters mostly run their own shops or pull permits for someone who pays them like it. If your state allows experienced plumbers to work under your master's license, saying so in the post opens the door to solid four-and-five-year plumbers the "journeyman required" posts are all filtering out.

This matters because the pool is thin and stays thin. BLS projects 4% growth for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters with about 44,000 openings a year — most of them replacing plumbers who retire or leave the trade. Every unnecessary requirement is a bigger cut from a smaller pool. We covered the supply picture in plumber shortage and demand outlook.

Service vs new-construction: say which one, in the title

A service plumber and a new-construction plumber share a license and not much else. Service is diagnosis, customer conversation, and selling the repair in an occupied home with water on the floor. New construction is rough-in and top-out to plans, production pace, on schedule with other trades. Plenty of excellent construction plumbers are miserable on service, and vice versa.

So the title does the sorting: "Service Plumber," "Plumber — New Construction," "Repair & Remodel Plumber." A post titled just "Plumber" makes both kinds of candidate guess, and guessing candidates skip. The template above includes an explicit "no rough-in" (or "no service calls") line for the same reason — it's the cheapest mismatch-prevention you can buy.

Pay: know your market before you pick the range

The national median for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters is $63,800 a year per BLS May 2025 data, but state and metro medians spread widely, and license tier moves the number too — price a journeyman like a journeyman. Check your state in our plumber salary by state breakdown before you commit to a range, and make the range one you'd actually pay. A fantasy ceiling gets you interviews that die at the offer.

On-call: plumbing's version is heavier, so be more honest

Every trade has on-call. Plumbing's is the heaviest, because a slab leak or a sewage backup at 11pm is a genuine emergency and everyone in the trade knows the calls come. That makes vague on-call language read worse in a plumber post than anywhere else: an experienced service plumber assumes "some after-hours availability" means their weekends are gone, and moves on.

State the rotation, state what it pays, and if you've structured it to be humane — a fair rotation, real on-call pay, comp time after a brutal night — say so, because it's a legitimate competitive edge. Replacing a plumber who quits over surprise on-call costs 50-60% of salary in direct costs and 90-200% all-in, per SHRM. The honest paragraph is cheaper.

Apprentices: the line that builds your bench

If you run or sponsor an apprenticeship, put it in the post — both the "mentor an apprentice" duty bullet and the paid-training benefit. It signals a shop that develops people, which experienced plumbers read as a place worth staying, and it attracts the next tier of your pipeline. Just go in with open eyes about how many apprentices finish: we broke down the numbers in apprenticeship completion rates, and they're a reason to onboard apprentices deliberately, not casually.

The mistakes specific to plumber posts

No pay range. Same as every trade. It's the first filter and the biggest.
License tier mismatch. Requiring master for journeyman work, or failing to mention the tier at all so licensed plumbers assume the worst.
"Plumber" with no service/construction split. Both kinds of candidate skip rather than guess.
Hiding the on-call. In the emergency trade, this is the fastest way to convert a good hire into a resignation.
Posting and going quiet. A post is the start of a process, not the process. What happens after someone applies — response speed, screening, and the first 30 days — decides whether the hire sticks. For the full process, see how to hire plumbers; for what happens after they say yes, see how to onboard a field tech.

Post it, then answer the phone

This template will out-pull a boilerplate post. What it can't do is respond to applicants at 7pm, screen out the no-shows, or keep a bench of plumbers warm for your next opening. That's the part we do at HireAligned: recruiting run end to end for plumbing, HVAC, and home-services companies, with per-role screening and a pre-screened bench, so the post feeds a pipeline instead of an inbox. If you'd rather hand the whole thing off, that's what done-for-you is.