What arborists earn, read off the federal data

National employment in the occupation is 55,160. For comparison, the adjacent occupation 45-4011, forest and conservation workers, employs 6,050 at an annual mean of $43,680 — a smaller, lower-paid field that is often confused with this one.

The gap between the tenth and ninetieth percentile is $18.24 to $38.61 an hour — more than double. That is not noise. It is the difference between dragging brush and being the person on the rope in a tree over a house, and between a two-truck residential outfit and a utility line-clearance contractor with a union agreement.

• Groundie

  Drags brush, feeds the chipper, tends ropes. Where almost everyone starts, and where the tenth percentile lives.

• Climber

  Ascends, rigs and makes the cuts. The skill that pays, and the position the median describes.

• Crew leader / consulting arborist

  Prices work, writes reports, carries the credential and the liability. The top decile.

Four levers, roughly in order of effect: becoming a productive climber; adding a credential that lets you sign something (see ISA certification); moving into utility line clearance, which pays a premium for the qualification and the hazard; and moving into consulting, where you are selling judgement rather than hours.

The route through the first two is laid out in how to become an arborist.

If you are pricing work rather than taking a wage, the figure that matters is the loaded cost. Taking the $26.91 hourly mean and loading it about 1.55× for payroll tax, a high-risk workers' compensation class and non-billable time lands near $41.71 per crew-member hour — the number every cost calculator on this site is built on.

That loading is an assumption, and the insurance guide covers the biggest line inside it. If you are heading toward running the truck yourself, start at how to start a tree service.