You're reading the lights on. Every switch you flip, every outlet you plug into, every data center humming with AI workloads -- it all exists because someone ran the wire. That someone is an electrician. And their story didn't start with a YouTube tutorial or a trade school brochure. It started with a war over current, a dangerous new industry, and workers who built the electrical backbone of a continent from scratch.
This is that story.
The Spark That Started It All: The Late 1800s
Before electricians existed as a trade, there was chaos.
Thomas Edison flipped the switch on his Pearl Street Station in New York City in 1882, sending direct current (DC) power to 59 customers. Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse fired back with alternating current (AC), which could travel farther and power more. The "War of Currents" didn't just settle a technical debate -- it created an entirely new category of skilled worker.
Someone had to string those lines. Someone had to wire those buildings. Someone had to do it without dying.
The introduction of electric lighting -- first arc lamps in the 1870s for city streets, followed by the incandescent light bulb in the 1880s -- heralded a much brighter future. And behind every light, there was a tradesperson figuring out how to make it work safely.
The work was brutal. In 1881, when the trade was in its infancy, one out of every two electrical workers was killed on the job. There were no standards, no safety codes, no training pipelines. Just live wire and willpower.
The IBEW: Workers Who Built the Rules
You can't tell the history of the electrical trade without talking about the union that shaped it.
In 1891, ten electrical workers met in St. Louis, Missouri, to form the first national union for the advancement and safety of those practicing a challenging and dangerous craft. From their efforts came a legacy of pride, skill, and dedication: the foundation of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The conditions that drove them to organize were grim. The NBEW was formed in response to long hours, low pay, terrible working conditions, and no training and safety standards. At its founding, electrical workers earned about $8 a week, lower than the wages paid to other trades. The industry's death and injury rate was double that of other industrial jobs.
The IBEW didn't just fight for wages. They built the framework for how the trade would be taught and practiced for generations. In September 1941, the National Apprenticeship Standards for the Electrical Construction Industry -- a joint effort among the IBEW, the National Electrical Contractors Association, and the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship -- were established.
Today, the IBEW conducts apprenticeship programs for electricians, linemen, and VDV installers in conjunction with the National Electrical Contractors Association, under the auspices of the National Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee (NJATC), which allows apprentices to "earn while you learn." That model -- work and train simultaneously, zero student debt -- is still one of the best deals in the American workforce.
Powering Industrialization: Factory Floors to Farm Fields
As cities wired up through the early 1900s, electricians became the engine behind industrial America. Factories converted from steam to electric motors. Assembly lines ran on power that electricians installed and maintained. Inventors created new machines using electric power in factories and homes, spurring growing demand. As a result, by the end of the Roaring '20s, most American cities were electrified.
But rural America was a different story entirely.
By 1930, nearly nine in 10 urban and nonfarm rural homes had access to electricity, but only about one in 10 farms did. Farmers were still using kerosene lamps. They were living a generation behind their city counterparts -- not by choice, but because private utilities refused to run lines where profits were thin.
FDR's New Deal changed that. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative electric power companies, hundreds of which still exist today.
REA crews traveled through the American countryside, bringing teams of electricians along with them. The electricians added wiring to houses and barns to utilize the newly available power provided by the line crews.
The results were staggering. 90 percent of rural homes in the U.S. didn't have electricity in 1935. Ten years later, almost all of them did. That transformation didn't happen by accident. It happened because electricians showed up in every county, in every state, and did the work.
The Post-WWII Boom: When America Built Everything
After World War II, America went on a construction spree that had never been seen before and hasn't been matched since.
Soldiers came home. Suburbs exploded. The interstate highway system started carving through the country. Commercial buildings, hospitals, schools, and millions of new homes all needed one thing: wiring.
Electricians were at the center of all of it. The surge in investment and the accompanying new demands for household electrical appliances spurred growth in home appliance manufacturing and spawned the electrical and plumbing trades in rural communities. Every refrigerator, every washing machine, every television set required an electrician who had pulled the wire that powered it.
The trade's profile grew with every decade. The IBEW grew with it -- the IBEW's membership peaked in 1972 at approximately 1 million members. That's a million skilled workers at the top of their game, building a modernizing country circuit by circuit.
The Digital Age: New Work, Same Skilled Hands
The next chapter of the electrical trade is being written right now -- and it's the biggest one yet.
Smart homes. EV charging infrastructure. Solar arrays. Wind farms. AI data centers that consume power at a scale that was unimaginable a decade ago. Every single one of those things needs electricians to install, commission, and maintain them.
Green power sources have increased the demand for electricians. As more alternative power sources such as solar and wind energy become popular, the need for electricians who can connect infrastructure to new technologies increases.
And the shortage is real. The demand for electricity to power homes, factories, office buildings, data centers, EVs, utilities, and other parts of daily life keeps growing, while the supply of electricians needed to connect and control electricity keeps going down.
The numbers are stark. Employment of electricians is projected to grow 9 percent from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations. About 81,000 openings for electricians are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Meanwhile, every year, nearly 10,000 electricians either retire or change careers, but only about 7,000 new ones enter the field.
The gap is widening. The opportunity is enormous.
David Long, CEO of the National Electrical Contractors Association, put it plainly: "The electrification industry is alive and well, and will be in high demand for a decade-plus. There's not an aspect of American life that will not be impacted by the work of electricians."
What This Means for You
Whether you're already in the trade or considering it, understand what you're walking into.
If you're an electrician today:
- Specialize in high-demand work: EV infrastructure, solar, battery storage, smart building systems. These are where the biggest jobs and the biggest paychecks are heading.
- Use AI-assisted estimating and project management tools to run tighter bids and win more work. Technology is a competitive edge, not a threat.
- If you're thinking about running your own shop, the labor market is working in your favor. Demand is outpacing supply by a wide margin.
If you're considering entering the trade:
- The median annual wage for electricians was $62,350 in May 2024. Top earners clear six figures. You get there through experience, not a diploma mill.
- The apprenticeship path is one of the best deals in any career: paid training, no student debt, and a job market that is structurally undersupplied.
- Specialize early. The electricians who wire data centers and EV charging networks are in a completely different conversation than the average residential wireman.
The electrical trade has been at the center of every major technological leap in North American history -- from the first power stations to the smart grids powering the AI economy. That isn't changing. If anything, the next 20 years will demand more electricians than any generation before them. The wire needs pulling. The question is whether you're the one picking up the tools.