A journeyman lineman is a line worker who has completed a line apprenticeship and is qualified to install and maintain transmission and distribution systems and to perform most tasks without direct supervision.
Journeyman is the topped-out rank in line work: the hours are logged, the skills are signed off, and the worker is certified at the journey level.
Texas also issues a state Journeyman Lineman license on top of that classification.
Here is what the classification means, what it unlocks, and what it pays.
What is a journeyman lineman?
A journeyman lineman is the qualified worker classification in line construction: someone who has finished a recognized line apprenticeship and can perform most tasks without supervision.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the milestone plainly — after 3 or 4 years of working, qualified electrical power-line apprentices reach the journey level, and from there they can handle most tasks on their own.
Everything that makes the tier meaningful follows from that.
On the programs our research read, reaching it means logged hours, completed related instruction, and a step off the apprentice wage schedule onto the journey-level rate.
An apprentice is working toward that; a journeyman has arrived.
The classification answers to more than one name.
A posting for a "journey lineman" is a posting for a journeyman lineman — "journey" is the shortened form of the same word.
Outside journeyman lineman adds the trade's own geography: the IBEW/NECA apprenticeship system, run through the electrical training ALLIANCE, treats outside lineman as its own program, separate from inside wireman, residential wireman and VDV installer technician.
Outside linemen install and maintain transmission and distribution systems, and they do not always work from a bucket truck — the ALLIANCE notes "as much of their work is atop wooden poles," so climbing is part of the craft.
Line work and inside electrical work are kept separate on this site for the same reason.
One more boundary matters.
In the sources we reviewed, journeyman lineman is chiefly an apprenticeship classification rather than a government license: those sources show no single industry-wide journeyman lineman exam, and a registered program certifies completion with a certificate issued by the Registration Agency under the federal apprenticeship rule, 29 CFR 29.5.
The one state license our research verified is Texas's Journeyman Lineman license, covered further down this page.
Is a journeyman lineman different from a lineman?
The two words describe different things: lineman names the occupation, journeyman lineman names the experience tier inside it.
In federal data the occupation is electrical power-line installers and repairers, SOC 49-9051, which the May 2025 employer survey counted at 131,070 jobs.
Within that occupation sit apprentices working toward the journey level and journeymen who have reached it.
When a crew calls someone a lineman, the word alone does not tell you which tier they are at; the qualification behind it does.
What separates the tiers on a crew is supervision.
A journeyman can take the work without a more senior lineman standing over them; an apprentice's hours are, by rule, supervised employment.
Registered programs pair the two — the Northwest Line JATC's standards allow up to one apprentice per journey-level lineman, and on energized-conductor crews cap it at two apprentices with two journey-level workers, foreman included.
And a journeyman lineman is not a journeyman electrician.
Line work and inside electrical work are separate trades with separate federal occupation codes — power-line installers are 49-9051, electricians 47-2111 — and where a state licenses both, the licenses are not equivalent.
Texas puts it in writing: its Journeyman Lineman license "is a limited license and NOT the equivalent of a Journeyman Electrician license."
The boundary also shows in Texas statute: work on "equipment under the exclusive control of an electric utility, electric cooperative, or power generation company" is exempt from the state's electrician licensing law (Texas Occupations Code §1305.003(a)(5)).
The full trade-vs-trade comparison is in our inside wireman vs lineman guide.
What does a journeyman lineman do that an apprentice can't?
The core difference is supervision.
Qualified apprentices reach the journey level and can then perform most tasks without it — that is the whole of what topping out clears.
Apprentices work under supervision until the program says otherwise.
The gates an apprentice works behind show what topping out actually clears.
In the Northwest Line JATC's registered standards, an apprentice may not work on circuits above 600 volts without JATC approval, supportive progress reports, a foreman or journeyman recommendation, hot-stick training and 750–1,000 hours of cold distribution work — and must log at least 100 hours of hot distribution work before step 6 and 500 before step 7.
First-period apprentices — and higher-step apprentices not yet trained in climbing — are used in the groundsman classification.
A journeyman lineman is past every one of those gates.
Journeymen also hold a responsibility apprentices do not: supervision itself.
In the electrical training ALLIANCE's job analysis of outside linemen, 92% of journey-level linemen reported supervising among their duties — more than reported underground distribution (69%) or substation work (65%) — alongside installing and maintaining transformers (96%) and stringing wire (93%).
And the journeyman rate anchors the apprentice scale: in the Northwest Line JATC's wage schedule, apprentice steps run from 60% to 90% of the journey-level rate, so the journeyman rate is the number every apprentice step is measured against.
How do you become a journeyman lineman?
You top out through a line apprenticeship.
The entry side — how you get selected, screened and started — is its own subject, covered in our lineman career guide and its line apprenticeship page.
What concerns this page is the finish line, and it has four parts.
Complete a registered line apprenticeship
Programs set their own hour totals, and the three regional programs our research read each require 7,000 hours of supervised on-the-job training for the outside-line trade: the Northwest Line JATC, ALBAT and the California-Nevada JATC. BLS describes the span in years: after 3 or 4 years of working, qualified apprentices reach the journey level.Finish the related instruction
Classroom work runs alongside the hours. The federal rule recommends 144 hours a year of related instruction for registered programs; the Northwest Line JATC requires at least 187 hours a year — 562 hours in total — held on Saturdays and unpaid, with an 80% passing average.Receive the completion certificate
A registered apprenticeship program must recognize successful completion with a certificate issued by the Registration Agency — the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Apprenticeship or a state apprenticeship agency (29 CFR 29.5). In trade shorthand, that certificate is the journeyman lineman card.Add the state license where one exists
Texas licenses journeyman linemen through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). Our research checked no other state's lineworker licensing — see the callout below before assuming your state issues one.
The exam question deserves its own word: the sources we reviewed show no single industry-wide journeyman lineman exam, so recognition at the journey level is set rule by rule — program, local or agreement.
The IBEW outside referral rules — read in the California Outside Line Construction Agreement, the contract between NECA's Western Line Constructors and IBEW outside locals — recognize journeymen who have passed a Journeyman Lineman's examination "given by a duly constituted" Outside Construction Local Union of the IBEW or been certified as a Journeyman Lineman by any outside JATC.
The test you take, if any, is your local's or your JATC's own — not a national one.
Texas's is the one state lineman license our research verified, and its terms are instructive.
TDLR's Journeyman Lineman license covers the maintenance and operation of transmission and distribution equipment from the electricity's original source to a substation for further distribution.
Eligibility is 7,000 hours in a USDOL-approved apprenticeship, or 3.5 years of experience as a journeyman lineman for a Texas utility, co-op, municipal utility or electrical contractor; the application carries a $30 non-refundable fee, an exam is required, and the license is valid one year and renewed annually.
Texas's lineman license is a state-specific rule — our research did not check other states' licensing, so do not assume a similar license exists where you live, or that a Texas license travels.
Career information, not licensing, legal, code or safety advice. Hour totals, fees and license rules change; confirm current requirements with your apprenticeship program and with the licensing board in your state — in Texas, TDLR.
Verify before you rely on any of this
What comes after journeyman: foreman and beyond
Journeyman is a destination for the apprenticeship and a starting line for the career.
The next rung is crew leadership: foremen run the crew and its work, and a foreman is a journey-level worker — the Northwest Line JATC's crew rules count the foreman among the journey-level workers on an energized-conductor crew.
On its outside lineman apprenticeship page, the Northwest Line JATC says there is "no seniority or tenure within the Industry" for journeymen, and that moving up to foreman rests on knowledge and ability.
That is the JATC's own characterization, and our research did not confirm it from any other source.
Beyond foreman, line careers branch more than they climb.
Specialization is one direction: O*NET's sample job titles for the occupation include Troubleman and Class Gloving Electrical Lineman alongside Power Lineman and Lineworker.
Employer type is another — utilities, utility system construction, local government, specialty trade contractors and federal government all employ line workers; the 2025 shares are in the last section below.
Our lineman career guide covers where the trade as a whole goes.
From the journeyman seat, the honest summary is that the credential opens the doors; what you do with it is a choice of crew, employer and region.
How much does a journeyman lineman make?
BLS reports one set of numbers for the whole occupation — electrical power-line installers and repairers (SOC 49-9051) — and the federal figures we hold carry no journeyman-only line in them.
In the May 2025 OEWS release, the median was $95,320 a year — $45.83 an hour — and the middle half of the occupation earned between $67,270 and $109,740 (25th to 75th percentile).
BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook gives the same median for May 2025.
Where union scale applies, it is set agreement by agreement, and a line agreement our research read shows what a journeyman rate looks like in print.
Under the California Outside Line Construction Agreement (NECA Western Line Constructors and IBEW Locals 47 and 1245, June 1, 2022 through May 31, 2027), the journeyman lineman rate went from $64.40 an hour on June 1, 2022, to $72.26 on June 1, 2025, and $74.43 on June 1, 2026, plus NEAP contributions.
That is one regional agreement in one state's market — not a national scale, and not a prediction for your local.
The survey medians we hold also do not split union from non-union shops, and they do not itemize overtime, per diem or storm assignments — BLS notes that after storms, line workers may travel to impacted areas and work long hours for several days in a row.
How overtime, travel and per diem actually stack is covered in storm work and how line pay is structured.
For the full state-by-state tables, see the journeyman lineman salary page.
Find journeyman lineman jobs
Journeymen linemen are hired across the whole grid economy: of power-line installer jobs in 2025, 50% were at utilities, 29% in utility system construction, 10% in local government, 6% in specialty trade contractors and 2% in federal government.
BLS projects 10,900 openings a year on average over 2025–35, many of them to replace workers who retire or change occupations.
If you hold the card — or you are within sight of it — the listings show what employers are asking for and paying right now: browse journeyman lineman jobs.