What Landscaping Pays in Phoenix: $18.82 an Hour

Phoenix pays landscaping workers a better floor than the rest of the country and a worse ceiling. The bottom 10% here earn $17.73 an hour against $14.98 nationally, but the top 10% earn $23.76 against $27.28. That single compression explains almost everything about this trade in the Valley.

What do landscapers make in Phoenix?

A median of $18.82 an hour, about $39,140 a year at full time, with the 10th percentile at $17.73 and the top 10% at $23.76, per BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, May 2025. The number worth staring at is the spread. From the median to the top of the trade is $4.94 an hour, the narrowest band of any construction-adjacent trade in this metro. In most trades, experience is worth a lot of money. Here, it is worth less than five dollars.

Does landscaping pay better in Phoenix than elsewhere?

At the bottom yes, at the top no, and the medians land in exactly the same place. Phoenix landscaping workers earn $17.73 at the 10th percentile against $14.98 nationally, which is a genuinely better start, nearly three dollars an hour above the national floor. But the Phoenix 90th percentile is $23.76 against $27.28 nationally, so the experienced end of the trade earns less here than it does elsewhere. Both medians sit at $18.82.

This is a safer place to begin in landscaping and a harder place to build a career in it. That is not a reason to avoid the trade. It is a reason to know the exit routes before you have given it ten years.

How does landscaping compare with construction work in Phoenix?

It pays less, by a margin that matters. A general construction laborer in the same metro earns a $22.56 median, $3.74 an hour above landscaping, roughly $7,800 a year at full time, and the construction laborer’s top decile is $29.93 against landscaping’s $23.76. The two jobs ask for broadly similar physical work and neither requires prior experience, which makes this one of the cheapest pay rises available to anybody already swinging a trimmer.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, May 2025. Note that landscaping and construction laborers start within five cents of each other at the 10th percentile. The two trades separate as people gain experience, not at the door.

Is landscaping year-round work in Phoenix?

Yes, and it is the trade’s strongest argument. Desert landscape does not go dormant the way it does in a cold climate, so maintenance routes run all twelve months. Irrigation works hardest in the summer, when everything depends on it. Monsoon storms tear up trees and dump debris in exactly the months when heat slows other construction. Phoenix employs about 16,850 landscaping and groundskeeping workers, and that demand is spread evenly across the calendar rather than tied to a build cycle that can stop.

For somebody who needs a paycheck every week rather than a bigger paycheck sometimes, that steadiness is worth real money that the wage table does not show.

Can you start landscaping with no experience?

Yes, more easily than almost any other trade in the Valley. Mowing, trimming, edging, blowing and cleanup can be taught in a day, and a foreman can tell within one route whether somebody will keep up. What actually gets screened is whether you can be at the truck early five days running, whether you can work through heat, and whether you can reach the yard the crew leaves from. A driver license carries more weight here than in most trades, because crews move between properties all day and a hand who can drive is worth more than one who cannot. The broader version of this is in construction jobs in Phoenix with no experience.

What is landscaping like in the Phoenix summer?

It is the trade most exposed to heat, because the work is outdoors with no structure to shade it and the routes run through the middle of the day. Crews start very early for that reason. Arizona runs its own occupational safety plan through ADOSH, which maintains an emphasis program on heat covering water, rest, shade and acclimatization, acclimatization matters most in landscaping because new hands are put straight onto full routes. The practical detail is in Phoenix heat rules for construction workers.

How do you get on a landscaping crew in Phoenix?

Be reachable, and be specific about where you can start early. Landscaping runs routes rather than sites, so a foreman is not asking whether you will work anywhere in the metro. He is asking whether you can meet the truck at 5am in a particular part of the Valley. Say that clearly. Most crews fill a gap by calling somebody before a listing is ever written, which is the same mechanism described in how to get on a construction crew in Phoenix, and you can look at open landscaping jobs on the board before you call anybody.

Listing yourself on FindAZPros takes about two minutes, costs nothing and needs no login. It puts your trade and your area where a company short a hand can find it.

How do you earn more than the landscaping median?

Two routes, and the narrow wage band means you should pick one deliberately rather than waiting for seniority to pay. The first is up: first-line supervisors of landscaping crews in Phoenix earn a $27.26 median with a $37.45 top decile, which is $8.44 an hour above the worker median and more than the whole worker band is wide. The second is across: irrigation and hardscape pay above mow-and-blow maintenance because they involve systems and materials, and a step onto a construction crew is worth $3.74 an hour immediately. Where those ladders lead is set out in helper to journeyman pay in Phoenix and the highest-paying trades in Phoenix.

Sources

• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, May 2025 . All Phoenix figures, retrieved via the BLS public data API for occupations 37-3011, 37-1012, 47-2061 and 47-2051.
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, national, May 2025 , the $14.98 / $18.82 / $27.28 national landscaping figures.