Statewide pay Government data
Insulation installers in North Carolina earn a statewide median of $42,990 a year, 11% below the typical U.S. metro, ranking #44 of 48 states. About 2,090 people work in the trade statewide.
Statewide pay range
States ranked near North Carolina
See all states on the insulation installers nationwide.
Pay by city Government data
BLS publishes insulation installer pay for 4 North Carolina metros. The highest-paying is Greensboro at $46,500, followed by Raleigh and Charlotte.
| Metro | Median pay | Real pay | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| GreensboroNORTH CAROLINA · NC | $46,500 | $50,073 | 120 |
| RaleighNORTH CAROLINA · NC | $46,030 | $46,894 | 480 |
| CharlotteNORTH CAROLINA · NC | $44,520 | $45,733 | 760 |
| WilmingtonNORTH CAROLINA · NC | $37,720 | $39,120 | 90 |
Pay: BLS OEWS, May 2025 (metro-level). Real pay: BEA price parities, 2024. How we calculate
Pay outside the cities Government data
BLS also reports pay for North Carolina's rural (nonmetropolitan) regions.
BLS OEWS nonmetropolitan areas, May 2025.
The job (national)
Line and cover structures with insulating materials. May work with batt, roll, or blown insulation materials.
Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 2.4% from 2025 to 2035, with about 3,000 openings a year. Typical training: short-term on-the-job training.
Nationally, insulation installers have 312 injuries or illnesses serious enough to miss work per 10,000 full-time workers, 3.6× the rate for all jobs (87). The most common cause is falls, slips and trips.
What the work is like Government data
How often insulation installers deal with each condition, from surveys of workers in the job.
Getting started usually takes some preparation (high school plus months of training).
O*NET 31.0 Work Context and Job Zones (U.S. Department of Labor), national.
Serious injuries & deaths reported to OSHA Government data
North Carolina runs its own workplace-safety program (an OSHA State Plan), so its injury reports aren't in the federal dataset. Nationally, in states federal OSHA covers, drywall and insulation contractors filed 512 severe injury reports from 2015 to 2024; the most common cause was falls, slips and trips (67%). OSHA also opened 9 fatality investigations at drywall and insulation contractors in North Carolina over the same years (federal and state programs).
OSHA Severe Injury Reports, January 2015–December 2024 (states under federal OSHA only).
Fatality investigations: OSHA Fatality Inspection Data, events 2015–2024, all states.
Licensing in North Carolina Official source
The main state licensing office in North Carolina is the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors. Electrical and plumbing/HVAC have their own state boards. It can point you to the right license for insulation installers.
Official North Carolina licensing site ↗
Requirements for insulation installers vary by state and sometimes by city; always confirm with the official agency.
Union membership
In 2025, 2.5% of wage and salary workers in North Carolina were union members, below the U.S. rate of about 10% (#50 of 51 states and D.C.), and 3.1% were covered by a union contract. These figures cover all jobs in the state, not only insulation installers.
BLS Union Members, 2025 (Current Population Survey), table 5.
Cities in North Carolina
All trades in North Carolina.