Top 10 Skilled Trades Most Broadly Licensed Across US States
PlainHireCheck's ranking of regulated skilled trades by the number of US states (out of 50 plus DC) that require state-level licensing. Server-rendered from a live query against the trades table.
Research period:
Research question
Across the 20 skilled trades catalogued by PlainHireCheck, which carry the broadest licensing footprint, meaning the largest number of US jurisdictions where a state-level license is required to legally perform the trade, and how does that breadth correlate with risk classification and exam requirements?
Methodology
Every number on this page is pulled live from PlainHireCheck's current dataset at the moment you load it, ranked from highest to lowest and limited to the top 10. Nothing here is a hardcoded or cached figure: when the underlying state contractor and trade licensing records are refreshed, this page reflects the new numbers automatically.
Values are shown in the units and precision published by each state's contractor licensing board. Records with a missing or zero value on the ranking metric are excluded rather than shown as artificial zeros.
State contractor licensing boards publish their state contractor and trade licensing records on their own release schedules; when a board updates its requirements, PlainHireCheck reflects the new figures automatically without any change to this page. If a board later revises a published value, the revision flows through the same way. See the methodology page for the full source vintage and refresh history.
Outliers are shown as published, not silently smoothed or clipped, so readers can judge them in context via the source link. Where a state changes its licensing categories or reporting scope between updates, we note it on the methodology page rather than blending incompatible vintages into one ranking.
PlainHireCheck maintains an editorial standards process for how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how disputed values are corrected. The byline at the top of this page names the editorial owner accountable for its framing. Every figure traces back to the original state licensing board record via the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the public source. Corrections, takedowns, or clarifications can be requested through the contact channels in the site footer.
Top 10 Skilled Trades Most Broadly Licensed Across US States
Live data, updates automatically when the source dataset is refreshed
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects PlainHireCheck's current dataset (10 rows shown). When the source is refreshed, this table updates automatically.
| # | Trade | Category | States requiring license | Risk level | Exam required (states) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Electrician | specialty | 51 | critical | 1 |
| 2 | Pest Control | specialty | 51 | high | 1 |
| 3 | Plumber | specialty | 47 | critical | 1 |
| 4 | HVAC Technician | specialty | 40 | high | 1 |
| 5 | General Contractor | general | 36 | high | 1 |
| 6 | Painter | specialty | 36 | low | 0 |
| 7 | Carpenter | specialty | 36 | medium | 0 |
| 8 | Mason | specialty | 36 | medium | 0 |
| 9 | Landscaper | outdoor | 36 | low | 0 |
| 10 | Elevator Mechanic | specialty | 36 | critical | 1 |
Source: US state contractor and trade licensing boards, State contractor and trade licensing records. Figures are pulled from PlainHireCheck's current dataset and update automatically when the source is refreshed. US state contractor and trade licensing boards, State contractor and trade licensing records. Figures are pulled from PlainHireCheck's current dataset and update automatically when the source is refreshed.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Electrician, with a value of 51 on the States requiring license column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. No number on this page is hardcoded, when US state contractor and trade licensing boards publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (51) and the 10th-ranked record (36) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from US state contractor and trade licensing boards, specifically the State contractor and trade licensing records. PlainHireCheck ingests the source vintage published by the agency and serves it from its current dataset, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published source vintage propagates to this page automatically. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how the figures are compiled.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Licensing-breadth counts represent the number of US states (out of 50 plus the District of Columbia) where PlainHireCheck has confirmed an active state-level licensing regime for the trade. Trades that are regulated primarily at the municipal or county level, such as residential general contracting in many parts of the Northeast and Midwest, may show a lower state-level breadth than their true regulatory footprint suggests. States with state-level registration regimes that do not require an exam or bond are counted as licensing the trade because consumers and hiring parties can still verify the registration. Some trades operate under specialty endorsements or sub-trade designations that vary by state, and PlainHireCheck consolidates closely related specialties to the parent trade for cross-state comparability. Risk-level classifications (low / medium / high / critical) reflect the typical scope of consumer harm if work is performed by an unqualified party, derived from the underlying licensing-board justifications. They are screening signals for consumers and not regulatory determinations.
Secondary cut from the same source
Trades ranked by the number of states that require a written or practical exam as part of the licensing process
Sources
- State licensing boards, primary records aggregated by PlainHireCheck - https://plainhirecheck.com/methodology
- National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies (NASCLA) - https://www.nascla.org/