Fire Protection Industry Statistics 2026
How many fire protection openings are live right now, where they are, and what federal data says about the size of the workforce.
BLS has no fire protection occupation, so every federal figure below names the occupation it actually describes.
Live Fire Protection Openings
These numbers are FireProtectionHires’s own: every active listing on the board, from employer career sites and direct postings.
Every other figure on this page comes from a federal agency.
| Role | Listings with hourly pay | Median posted low | Median posted high |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Alarm Technicians | 40 | $35.00/hr | $50.00/hr |
| Fire Alarm Installers | 33 | $23.00/hr | $50.00/hr |
| Sprinkler Service Technicians | 16 | $25.00/hr | $37.50/hr |
Roles with at least 15 hourly-pay listings are shown; each column is the median of the posted range’s low or high end.
Posted ranges are what employers advertise, not what workers earn, so they do not compare directly with the BLS wages below.
How to read these numbers.
This is a live sample of the openings FireProtectionHires tracks, not a count of every fire protection job in the country.
Roles follow our job categories, not BLS occupations, and listings we cannot place in a state count only in the total.
If you cite them, include the date shown and link to this page.
How Big Is the Fire Protection Workforce?
BLS does not count fire protection as its own occupation.
The trade’s workers sit inside broader occupations, so the counts below are the closest available stand-ins, not fire-protection-only totals.
| BLS occupation | Payroll jobs, May 2025 | Employment 2025 | Projected 2035 | Browse |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbers, Pipefitters & Steamfitters SOC 47-2152Closest available BLS occupation for sprinkler fitters (no sprinkler-fitter-only data). Covers all pipe trades, and plumbers are the largest group. | 465,840 | 510,600 | 545,200 | Sprinkler fitter openings |
| Security & Fire Alarm Systems Installers SOC 49-2098Closest available BLS occupation for fire alarm technicians. It also includes security alarm installers, and BLS publishes no fire-alarm-only figure. | 86,340 | 86,300 | 92,100 | Fire alarm technician openings |
| Related occupations | ||||
| Fire Inspectors & Investigators SOC 33-2021Mostly government fire and code inspectors, plus fire investigators. Contractor inspection technicians are not part of this count. | 13,800 | 14,700 | 15,300 | Fire inspector openings |
| Health & Safety Engineers SOC 17-2111Includes fire protection engineers. BLS publishes data only for this parent occupation, which also covers other safety engineers. | 21,450 | 22,300 | 23,500 | Fire protection engineer openings |
Payroll jobs are BLS OEWS wage-and-salary estimates. Employment 2025 and 2035 are BLS Employment Projections figures, which also count the self-employed, so they run higher.
Building equipment contractors is the BLS industry group that includes fire sprinkler contractors, together with plumbing and heating contractors.
Most of this occupation works for security services firms, which is one reason it is only a stand-in for fire alarm technicians.
Roles BLS does not count at all
- Fire sprinkler inspectors. O*NET files the title under fire inspectors and investigators, an occupation made up mostly of government inspectors, so its figures do not describe contractor inspection work. Source
- Fire extinguisher technicians. No BLS occupation is specific to extinguisher servicing, and O*NET files these titles under a residual repair-worker code that mixes many unrelated jobs. Source
- Fire protection technicians. This is an umbrella job title rather than a BLS occupation, covering alarm, sprinkler and extinguisher work that BLS counts in different occupations.
We show no BLS figure for these roles rather than borrow one from an occupation that does not describe the work.
Sources: BLS OEWS May 2025, BLS OEWS May 2025 industry estimates, BLS Employment Projections 2025–35, O*NET 47-2152, O*NET 49-2098, O*NET 17-2111.02
BLS Pay and Growth Benchmarks
BLS projects 6.8% employment growth from 2025 to 2035 for both stand-in occupations, against 3.5% for all occupations.
These are benchmarks for the broader occupations only; BLS publishes no sprinkler-fitter-only or fire-alarm-only pay or projection.
| BLS occupation | Median wage, May 2025 | 10th to 90th percentile | Growth 2025–35 | Openings a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbers, Pipefitters & Steamfitters SOC 47-2152 | $63,800$30.67/hr | $44,150 to $108,420 | +6.8% | 42,000 |
| Security & Fire Alarm Systems Installers SOC 49-2098 | $60,070$28.88/hr | $38,800 to $81,150 | +6.8% | 8,500 |
| Related occupations | ||||
| Fire Inspectors & Investigators SOC 33-2021 | $75,920$36.50/hr | $46,530 to $118,750 | +4.2% | 1,600 |
| Health & Safety Engineers SOC 17-2111 | $115,160$55.36/hr | $68,420 to $171,250 | +5.4% | 1,200 |
Wages are BLS OEWS national estimates for wage-and-salary workers in all industries. Openings include replacements for workers who leave the occupation.
Sources: BLS OEWS May 2025, BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
Statistics by Role
Each role page combines live listing figures with the BLS data for that role.
A role page is published once the board tracks at least 300 of its listings from 25 employers.
- Sprinkler Fitter statistics545 live listings from 40 employers
- Fire Alarm Technician statistics636 live listings from 47 employers
Frequently Asked Questions
How many fire protection jobs are open right now?
FireProtectionHires listed 2,688 live fire protection openings from 83 employers on November 5, 2026. The count covers every active listing on the board and is refreshed every six hours.
How many sprinkler fitters are there in the U.S.?
BLS publishes no sprinkler-fitter-only count. Sprinkler fitters are counted inside plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters (SOC 47-2152), the closest available occupation, which had 465,840 wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025 across all pipe trades.
How many fire alarm technicians are there?
BLS counts fire alarm technicians together with security alarm installers as security and fire alarm systems installers (SOC 49-2098). That occupation had 86,340 wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025, and 55,920 of them were in investigation and security services.
Is the fire protection workforce growing?
BLS projects employment of both stand-in occupations, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters and security and fire alarm systems installers, to grow 6.8% from 2025 to 2035, against 3.5% for all occupations. That is about 42,000 and 8,500 openings a year. BLS does not publish separate projections for sprinkler fitters or fire alarm technicians.
Does BLS track fire sprinkler inspectors or fire extinguisher technicians?
No. BLS has no occupation for contractor fire sprinkler inspectors, fire extinguisher technicians or general fire protection technicians, and O*NET spreads those titles across several broader codes. This page shows no BLS figure for them.
What do the closest BLS occupations pay?
In May 2025 the median wage was $63,800 a year ($30.67 an hour) for plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters and $60,070 a year ($28.88 an hour) for security and fire alarm systems installers. These are stand-in occupations, not sprinkler-fitter-only or fire-alarm-only wages.
Methodology and Sources
Live figures count every active, paid listing on FireProtectionHires when the page was generated, and the page refreshes every six hours.
Federal figures are quoted as BLS published them: OEWS May 2025 for payroll employment and wages, and Employment Projections 2025–35 for growth and openings.
Where BLS has no occupation for a fire protection role, we name the closest occupation and say what else it includes, or show no figure at all.
Shares marked as calculated are our arithmetic on the published BLS counts.
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national fileWage-and-salary employment and annual and hourly wage percentiles for each occupation, all industries.
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, industry fileEmployment by industry for the same occupations (building equipment contractors; investigation and security services).
- BLS Employment Projections 2025–35, Table 1.22025 and 2035 employment (including the self-employed), percent change and average annual openings.
- O*NET OnLine, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (47-2152.00)Lists Sprinkler Fitter and Fire Sprinkler Service Technician among the occupation's reported job titles.
- O*NET OnLine, Security and Fire Alarm Systems Installers (49-2098.00)Lists Fire Alarm Technician among the occupation's reported job titles, alongside security installer titles.
- O*NET OnLine, title search for fire sprinkler inspectorPlaces the title under Fire Inspectors and Investigators (33-2021).
- O*NET OnLine, title search for fire extinguisherPlaces extinguisher charger and repairer titles under a residual repair-worker code (49-9099).
- O*NET OnLine, Fire-Prevention and Protection Engineers (17-2111.02)A detailed O*NET occupation; BLS wage and projection data exist only for the parent 17-2111.
- FireProtectionHires job listingsActive, paid listings on the board, queried live.