Construction has historically been a male-dominated sector. In the 1960s, only about 6% of construction industry workers were women. This figure began to rise sharply between 1970 and the early 1990s, coinciding with increasing rates of female labor force participation overall. Between then and the mid-2000s, female representation in the construction sector remained relatively steady, aside from some fluctuations during the Great Recession. However, since around 2016, the percentage of women in the construction industry has consistently increased. As of July 2025, 14.4% of all workers and 10.7% of full-time workers in the sector are women.
While women still have low representation within construction trade occupations — such as plumbers, carpenters, masons and electricians — they have disproportionately high representation in some of the industry’s best-paying jobs: lawyers, training specialists, CEOs, computer systems analysts, software developers, financial managers, HR managers, civil engineers and management analysts.
Due to women’s relatively high concentrations in the sector’s top-paying jobs, the median wage for full-time women working in construction exceeds that for all full-time working women in 39 states. Additionally, the gender wage gap in the construction industry is 4.9%, compared to 18.9% across all full-time workers.
To find the best-paying states, researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to rank states according to the median annual wage for full-time female workers in the construction industry, adjusted for cost-of-living differences.
In this year’s edition of Construction Coverage’s Best-Paying States for Women in Construction report, Arizona ranks solidly in the middle (33rd) at $54,002 for median annual wage for women in the construction industry (adjusted), between Alaska at $74,251 and Delaware at $47,555. But ranked for the most women in construction, Arizona is 9th at 11.2% (between Alaska, again at the top, at 14.7% and Iowa at 7.8%).
