What Painters and Stucco Masons Earn in Phoenix

Phoenix painters and stucco masons earn medians forty-one cents apart, $23.49 and $23.90. At the top of each trade they are $7.31 apart, $31.06 against $38.37. If you are choosing between the two, the median is the wrong number to be looking at.

What do painters and stucco masons make in Phoenix?

Construction and maintenance painters earn a median of $23.49 an hour in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, about $48,860 a year at full time. Plasterers and stucco masons earn $23.90, about $49,700. Both figures come from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. On the median alone these are the same job for the money. They stop being the same job the moment you look at either end of the distribution.

Why do two trades with the same median pay so differently?

Because they reward mastery differently. Painting runs from $19.61 at the 10th percentile to $31.06 at the 90th, a band of $11.45. Stucco runs from $18.27 to $38.37, a band of $20.10, nearly twice as wide. Stucco starts lower and finishes far higher. That shape tells you the material is unforgiving: a beginner is worth less on a stucco wall than on a paint job, and somebody who can run scratch, brown and finish coats to a consistent texture is worth a great deal more.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metro, May 2025. The band column is the 90th percentile minus the 10th, how much room a trade has between its worst-paid and best-paid tenth.

How do these trades compare to the rest of the country?

Painting is the rare Phoenix trade that pays essentially the national rate: a $23.49 median here against $23.75 nationally, twenty-six cents apart. Stucco does not, $23.90 here against a $27.72 national median, $3.82 below. That puts stucco in the same category as Phoenix roofing and Phoenix drywall, trades where a deep local labour pool holds the wage down despite obvious demand. Painting escaping that pattern is genuinely unusual.

Which one is easier to start in?

Painting, on both measures that matter to a beginner. Phoenix employs about 3,920 painters against 1,310 plasterers and stucco masons, so there are simply more doors, and painting starts higher at the bottom, $19.61 at the 10th percentile against $18.27 for stucco. Stucco asks more of a green hand because the material sets on its own schedule and every mistake stays on the wall. That is the same trade-off the wage band describes: a harder start bought with a higher ceiling.

What does Phoenix heat do to painting and stucco?

It moves the working day and dictates which wall you are on. Both trades are governed by surface temperature rather than air temperature, coatings flash off too fast and cementitious finishes cure wrong on a wall that has been in full sun, so exterior crews chase shade around the building and start early. Interior painting carries on regardless, which is part of why painting has the steadier floor. Arizona runs its own occupational safety plan through ADOSH with an emphasis programme on heat covering water, rest, shade and acclimatization; the practical detail is in Phoenix heat rules for construction workers.

How do you get on a painting or stucco crew in Phoenix?

Be specific about which trade and which part of it. “Painting” splits into interior and exterior, new construction and repaint; stucco splits into scratch, brown and finish, and a finish hand is a different hire from a hand who can only load and scratch. Say which you are, name the part of the Valley you can reach early, and be reachable. Both trades fill a gap by phone before anybody writes a listing. The general mechanics are in how to get on a construction crew in Phoenix, and open painting jobs on the board shows what is live right now.

Listing yourself on FindAZPros takes about two minutes, costs nothing and needs no login.

Where is the money in these two trades?

In stucco it is above the median and it is large: the distance from $23.90 to $38.37 is $14.47 an hour, roughly $30,100 a year at full time, and it belongs to hands who can run a consistent finish coat. In painting the ceiling is lower, so the money is more often found by moving sideways, commercial and industrial coatings, or spray and specialty finishes, or upward into supervision, where first-line construction supervisors earn a $38.38 median. If you are early enough to choose, the honest summary is that painting pays you sooner and stucco pays you more. The wider ladder is 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 47-2141, 47-2161, 47-2081 and 47-2061.
• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, national, May 2025 , the $23.75 painting and $27.72 stucco national medians.