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Plumber shortage in Virginia: the licensed-supply numbers
What the Virginia register actually shows, by tier and per capita, updated nightly.
As of 2026-08-09, Virginia carries 5,618 licensed plumbers
on its state register, or 64.5 per 100,000 residents.
5,618
licensed plumbers
64.5
per 100k residents
#31
density rank of 42
Virginia does not issue a separate apprentice license for this trade, so no pipeline ratio is published here. The tier counts below are what the register itself records.
By credential tier
Every plumber license on the Virginia register, normalized to one ladder.
Tier
Licensed
Share
Journeyman
742
13%
Master
4,876
87%
Against comparable states
States nearest Virginia on licensed plumbers per capita.
State
Licensed plumbers
Per 100k
Virginia
5,618
64.5
Maryland
6,521
105.5
Delaware
925
89.6
New Jersey
6,931
74.6
Nebraska
1,087
54.9
Arizona
3,443
46.3
Florida
8,973
39.7
Counts, not a capacity opinion. We publish the licensed supply and the pipeline
ratio; whether a market can absorb a given project is a judgement for the reader, not a claim we make.
Frequently asked
Is there a plumbers shortage in Virginia?
Reporting on the shortage rarely states how many are actually licensed. Virginia carries 5,618 licensed plumbers on its register as of 2026-08-09, or 64.5 per 100,000 residents. Readers can weigh that supply against demand directly.
How many licensed plumbers does Virginia have?
5,618 on the state register as of 2026-08-09, including 4,876 at master level.
Where does the shortage narrative come from?
Industry analyses project national shortfalls of hundreds of thousands of skilled-trades workers against data-center and electrification demand. Those are demand-side estimates; the figure here is the licensed supply on the register today.
New licenses, ladder upgrades, classification changes and lapses, by market and credential tier. Read the quarterly free, or license the underlying data.