Electricians install, maintain and repair the wiring and equipment a building runs on, to a code an inspector will check. ⚠ 818,700 people do it nationally with about 81,000 openings a year — the largest figure on this site — and Florida offers two ways in, one of which pays you while you train.
What the work actually is
O*NET: install, maintain and repair electrical wiring, equipment and fixtures, ensuring compliance with the code. The tasks are specific — prepare sketches or follow blueprints to determine the location of wiring or equipment; place conduit, pipes or tubing inside designated partitions, walls or other concealed areas; work from ladders, scaffolds or roofs; test electrical systems or continuity of circuits; diagnose malfunctions using test equipment and hand tools to locate breakdowns.
⚠ Two things follow from that list. Much of the work is installation, not repair — bending conduit, pulling wire, mounting boxes, on new construction. And everything is inspected: the National Electrical Code decides what is acceptable, and an inspector decides whether you met it.
Projected need
O*NET, on federal projections: 818,700 electricians employed (2024), growth “much faster than average (7% or higher)”, and ⚠ 81,000 openings a year — the largest figure on this site. Median wages $63,190 (2025), $30.38 an hour.
⚠ The education split is worth reading against the other trades: 62% of O*NET's respondents said a post-secondary certificate is required, against 31% a high school diploma. This is a trained trade in a way automotive and welding are not — and the training is also, unusually, something you can be PAID to do.
⚠⚠ Two routes in, and the second one pays you while you learn
The school route is the 1,200-hour Electricity certificate, or the 1,500-hour Electrician certificate with industrial work added; a 750-hour half exists for the first two completion points. 26 Florida institutions carry those courses, almost all district technical colleges.
⚠ The apprenticeship route is the traditional one in this trade, and the numbers make it easy to miss on a site like this one: the classroom half runs as Electrical Wiring I to VIII at six to eight state colleges, in 72- to 90-hour blocks, while you work for an employer for pay. A registered apprenticeship in Florida is typically four years, several thousand hours of supervised work plus the classroom, and it ends with a recognised completion certificate.
⚠ They are not competitors so much as different orders. The certificate gets you hireable quickly and is paid for by you; the apprenticeship pays you from the start but requires an employer to take you on. Many people do the helper certificate first and use it to get the apprenticeship.
⚠⚠⚠ Florida licenses the CONTRACTOR, not the electrician
This is the fact most likely to surprise someone planning a career here. Florida issues no statewide journeyman electrician licence. What the state licenses, through the Electrical Contractors' Licensing Board under Chapter 489 Part II, is the contractor — the person or business that contracts for electrical work and pulls the permits. A certified contractor may work anywhere in Florida; a registered one only in the jurisdictions that accepted their local competency.
⚠ Journeyman requirements are LOCAL. Counties and municipalities set their own journeyman competency cards and rules, and they differ — so the question to ask, early, is what YOUR county requires, not what Florida requires. ⚠ Ask the county building department directly; it is a five-minute call that shapes a career.
⚠ And whichever route you take, keep dated records of your hours and the work you did. Both the local journeyman card and the state contractor licence are evidence-based, and reconstructing four years of experience afterwards is miserable.
Necessary skills
- The code, as a working document. The NEC is not memorised, it is used — and knowing how to find and read the article that governs what you are doing is the skill.
- Bending conduit and planning a run. ⚠ The craft half of the trade, and the part that separates fast work from slow work.
- Diagnosis with a meter — continuity, voltage drop, grounding and the discipline to isolate before assuming.
- Blueprints and layout. Reading a drawing and setting out a building's electrical work before any wire is pulled.
- Safety that is habitual — lockout/tagout, arc flash, ladders and heights. The hazards here are lethal rather than merely painful, which is why the trade is procedural.
Advice
- ⚠ Call your county building department before you enrol and ask what its journeyman requirements are. Florida has no state answer to that question, and the local one determines what your hours need to look like.
- Ask about the apprenticeship at the same time. If a registered programme in your area is taking applications, it may be the better financial route — you earn while you learn — and the helper certificate is a common way to qualify for one.
- Industrial is where the ceiling is highest: motors, three-phase, controls and PLCs. Only four Florida institutions carry the industrial course, so if that is the goal, choose the programme accordingly or plan to learn it on the job.
- ⚠ Florida-specific demand: new construction, hurricane rebuild, solar and battery installation, and the electrical service upgrades that go with both. The state's growth is the reason the projection is what it is.
- Look at HVAC beside this — most air-conditioning faults are electrical, the two trades share technical colleges, and holding both certificates makes a technician unusually employable in Florida.
A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it
covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that
awarded a credential in the field in 2023;
it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different
from the course-based list further down.
Programs worth knowing about if you are considering this career — ⚠ they do
not lead to it. Each row says what it is and is not.
Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification
(CONSTRUCTION TRADES) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in.
⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and
expensive late.
Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on.
A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own
institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.
OCP A — Electrician Helper, 300 hours: safety, tools, the code, and the basic wiring that everything else is built on. ⚠ A hireable exit on its own, and a common way to qualify for an apprenticeship.
⚠ ⚠ The school route: 25–26 Florida institutions carry this course, almost all district technical colleges. ⚠ The apprenticeship route uses an entirely different set of course numbers (BCA0350–0357, Electrical Wiring I–VIII) at six to eight STATE colleges — same trade, different institutions, different transcript.
BCV0640
—Residential Electrician
Request a guide
OCP B — Residential Electrician, 450 hours: houses, services, branch circuits and the inspections that go with them.
⚠ ⚠ The school route: 25–26 Florida institutions carry this course, almost all district technical colleges. ⚠ The apprenticeship route uses an entirely different set of course numbers (BCA0350–0357, Electrical Wiring I–VIII) at six to eight STATE colleges — same trade, different institutions, different transcript.
BCV0652
—Commercial Electrician
Request a guide
OCP C — Commercial Electrician, 450 hours: three-phase, larger services, conduit and commercial systems. ⚠ Completing A–C is the 1,200-hour Electricity certificate.
⚠ ⚠ The school route: 25–26 Florida institutions carry this course, almost all district technical colleges. ⚠ The apprenticeship route uses an entirely different set of course numbers (BCA0350–0357, Electrical Wiring I–VIII) at six to eight STATE colleges — same trade, different institutions, different transcript.
BCV0667
—Industrial Electrician
Guide
OCP D — Industrial Electrician, the fourth point of the 1,500-hour certificate: motors, controls and industrial power. ⚠⚠ Only FOUR Florida institutions carry it (Manatee, Locklin, Haney and Florida Panhandle), so check before assuming your programme includes it — it is where the pay ceiling is highest.
⚠ ⚠ Four carriers against 25 for the commercial course. If industrial work is the goal and it is not offered near you, the usual answer is to learn it on the job or through an apprenticeship with an industrial employer.
BCA0350
—Electrical Apprenticeship I
Guide
Electrical Wiring I — the first classroom block of a registered apprenticeship, typically 72 hours taken while you work for pay.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0351
—Electricity 2
Guide
Electrical Wiring II — the second block. ⚠ The sequence runs to VIII over about four years, alongside several thousand hours of supervised work.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0352
—Electrical Wiring III
Request a guide
Electrical Wiring III.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0353
—Electricity 4
Guide
Electrical Wiring IV — roughly the halfway point of the classroom sequence.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0354
—Electricity 5
Guide
Electrical Wiring V — 90 hours, where the blocks lengthen as the content gets harder.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0355
—Electrical Wiring VI
Request a guide
Electrical Wiring VI.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0356
—Electricity 7
Guide
Electrical Wiring VII.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
BCA0357
—Electricity 8
Guide
Electrical Wiring VIII — the last classroom block before completion. ⚠ Completing a registered apprenticeship is recognised evidence of experience; keep the paperwork for the local journeyman card and, later, the contractor's licence.
⚠ ⚠⚠ THE APPRENTICESHIP ROUTE, and it is a different shape: 72–90 hours of classroom at a time, taken at a state college alongside PAID work with an employer, rather than a full-time certificate. Carried by the College of the Florida Keys, Daytona State, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Palm Beach State, Santa Fe, South Florida State and Tallahassee State.
32 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is
how many of the 6 listed courses each one carries — it shows where
the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a
degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.
Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before
committing to a route.