Michigan Construction, Energy and Trades Pathways: What High School Can Deliver

Scope of this guide and the short answer

A high school program delivers the front end of every construction, energy and trades career and the license at the end of none of them. Last checked Oct. 3, 2026.

This guide covers the Michigan CTE programs that lead into the building trades, electrical work, HVAC, plumbing and pipefitting, utility linework, heavy equipment and drafting. For each one it answers a practical question: how much of the career path can a high school program actually deliver, and what is left for an apprenticeship, a license or college?

The barriers are age and hours, and both are set in state law:

• A journeyman electrician license requires age 20 and 8,000 hours of supervised experience over at least 4 years.
• A journey plumber license requires age 18 and 6,000 hours over at least 3 years as a registered apprentice.
• A residential builder license requires age 18.
• Michigan’s youth employment rules bar every minor from paid construction work unless the school and employer sign a written agreement, and federal rules still apply on top of that agreement.

What high school can deliver is real: safety cards, NCCER credentials, a documented first year of related technical instruction in some electrical programs, a pre-licensure builder course, an EPA 608 refrigerant certification in some HVAC programs, and a head start on an apprenticeship application. The sections below show where each program sits.

Michigan’s program codes and where they are offered

MDE’s Office of Career and Technical Education lists eight codes for this area on its December 2025 Career Cluster and CIP list.

Plumbing Technology (46.0503) is closed to new program applications. Existing programs such as Careerline Tech Center’s Plumbing and Water Systems still run. Whether a closed code can continue indefinitely is a question to confirm with MDE OCTE. Pipefitting and sprinkler fitting (46.0502) does not appear on the current list, so plan pipefitting exposure inside Construction Trades or HVAC, or through a postsecondary partner.

Program examples you can point to

• Construction Trades. Muskegon Area ISD students build a full house and can earn OSHA 10 and the Michigan 60-hour pre-license builder training. Careerline Tech Center (Ottawa County) students work at the CTC Project House in Holland’s Timberline Acres subdivision; the program runs one year with an option to extend.
• Electrical. Careerline Tech Center states that students “are able to earn their first year of RTI (Related Technical Instruction) for apprenticeship” and lists OSHA 10, First Aid/CPR/AED, lockout/tagout, arc flash, NCCER Core and NCCER Electrical Level One. West Michigan Construction Institute (Kent County) runs a state-approved program for juniors and seniors in carpentry and electrical, calls its electrical program the only one in Kent County, and offers paid internships to qualified second-year students.
• HVAC. Careerline’s HVACR program launches in the 2026-27 school year. St. Joseph County ISD runs a combined HVAC, electrical and plumbing program at Glen Oaks Community College.
• Plumbing. Careerline’s one-year Plumbing and Water Systems program includes plumbing work at the CTC Project House and a February rotation with employers, with articulation to Bay College, Grand Rapids CC, Ferris State and Kalamazoo Valley CC.
• Detroit. Randolph Career and Technical Center serves more than 300 students in grades 10 to 12 in construction trades pathways including HVAC, electrical and carpentry.
• Lineworker. Char-Em ISD’s Energy Fundamentals: Lineworker Emphasis is a two-hour daily course for one school year for juniors and seniors at Boyne City High School, with Great Lakes Energy, Consumers Energy and DTE. State Street Academy’s lineman program at the Tri-County Trades Academy in Bay City works with IBEW Local 876 to help students “fast track through the start of the apprenticeship.”

How much of the career path high school can deliver

Drafting and woodworking programs can carry a student most of the way to an entry-level job; electrical, plumbing and linework programs deliver only the on-ramp, because the license clock runs on job-site hours after high school. The table ranks each pathway. “Gate” is the requirement a high school graduate cannot meet before leaving school.

The shares are qualitative. They follow from the hour and age rules in the next section, not from a study. NCCER hours are from the NCCER HVACR catalog.

Two ways to read the table

For electrical, plumbing and linework, the high school program is a strong on-ramp. It makes a student a better apprenticeship applicant and, where a sponsor accepts it, shortens the classroom portion. It does not shorten the hours clock that the license requires.

For drafting and woodworking, the high school program can deliver most of what an entry-level job needs. For drafting, the next step is usually a community college certificate or degree.

Licensing, apprenticeship and the hour rules

State law sets the minimum hours and ages; apprenticeship sponsors usually run longer programs than the state minimum.

Electrical

Michigan has no separate residential electrician license (Article 7 section list). A 3-year residential wireman apprenticeship (Detroit EITC lists 4,800 field hours) does not by itself reach the 8,000 hours the journeyman license requires.

The 5-year length of the IBEW Inside Wireman apprenticeship is a sponsor design. IBEW Michigan lists Inside Wireman at 5 years and Residential Wireman and Sound, Communication and Data at 3 years, and accepts applicants at 17 with a diploma or GED and one year of Algebra. Detroit EITC lists 8,000 field hours with class 8 hours two days a month for Inside Wireman.

Counting high school hours. An older Electrical Administrative Board rule (R 338.1005a) allowed up to 1,000 of the 8,000 hours for “participation in a training or educational program that is acceptable to the board.” Whether the current rules keep that credit, and whether a high school CTE program qualifies, is not settled. Confirm with LARA Bureau of Construction Codes. Until then, describe Careerline’s Year 1 RTI as credit a sponsor may accept toward the classroom portion, not credit toward the 8,000 hours.

Plumbing and pipefitting

Union programs run longer than the state minimum. Plumbers Local 98 (Detroit) and UA Local 85 (Saginaw) list 5-year apprenticeships, age 18 or older, a diploma or GED, a written exam and WorkKeys scores. No separate state pipefitter license was found in the Skilled Trades Regulation Act. Confirm with LARA how pipefitting work is licensed.

HVAC and mechanical

• Michigan has no state journeyman or apprentice mechanical license.
• A mechanical contractor license requires 3 years or 6,000 hours of experience in the work classification. A completed program can count for up to 1 year or 2,000 hours, as LARA determines (MCL 339.5807).
• EPA Section 608 certification is required to handle refrigerants. The federal exam rules set no minimum age, so a high school student can test where the program offers it.
• Apprenticeship lengths vary by local. Michigan sheet metal apprenticeships are described as 3 years with class one day a week; UA Local 85, which trains plumbers, steamfitters and HVACR service technicians, runs 5 years.

Construction and builder licensing

• A residential builder license requires age 18, 60 hours of pre-licensure courses and a passing exam. A student can finish the 60-hour course in high school and apply after turning 18.
• MDE’s 2022 Construction FAQ lists NCCER Core plus Carpentry Levels One and Two, UBC/CITF Career Connections, Michigan Home Builders Certification and the 60-hour Prelicensure Builders Certificate as approved credentials for 46.0000. OSHA 10 is supplemental and does not count as the primary credential. Confirm with MDE OCTE whether the 2022 list is current.
• The Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights describes a 4-year apprenticeship. Operating Engineers Local 324 lists 6,000 hours, about 3 years (UP Michigan Works).

Federal registered apprenticeship standards

A registered program measured by time requires at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job learning, recommends at least 144 hours of related instruction per year, and may set an entry age no lower than 16 (29 CFR 29.5). Age 18 is a sponsor policy where it applies, not a federal or state rule.

Linework

• DTE’s lineworker apprenticeship is 4 years with at least 7,760 hours worked.
• Lansing Community College’s Electrical Utility Lineworker program is selective, with its own application. It runs a 2-day summer climbing course, two semesters of academic courses, and a 9- or 11-week climbing school at a utility training center, and leads to an AAS.
• Mott Community College and Consumers Energy run a pre-apprenticeship with a 10-week core at Mott and an 11-week Climb School at Consumers’ Marshall facility. Completion does not guarantee employment.

Work on job sites before 18

Paid construction work for a 16- or 17-year-old is possible in Michigan only under a written school-employer agreement, and federal hazardous occupation orders still apply under it. Most license hours must be worked on a job site, so this section governs how early a student can start the clock.

Michigan rules

R 408.6208 sets hazardous occupation bars under the Youth Employment Standards Act:

• Under 16: no occupation in a construction operation, including site cleanup (subrule 1).
• All minors: no “construction work; additions; improvements; excavating; highway, bridge, and street construction; roofing … wrecking; demolition; or ship-breaking operations” (subrule 2).
• All minors: no work with hazardous substances or requiring a respirator (subrules 5 and 7).
• All minors: no operating, setting up, adjusting, oiling or cleaning power-driven woodworking machines, metal-forming machines or power saws (subrule 9).
• All minors: no trenchers or earth-moving equipment (subrule 10), and no power-driven hoisting apparatus, including power industrial trucks such as forklifts (subrule 11).

LEO cannot grant a deviation that allows hazardous work (MCL 409.120).

The school-employer agreement route

MCL 409.118 says the Youth Employment Standards Act “does not apply to or prohibit the employment of a student minor 14 years of age or older by an employer if a written agreement or contract is entered into between the employer and the governing body of the school district, public school academy, or nonpublic school.” The employment may not violate federal law, and a signed copy must be on file at the workplace before the student starts. R 408.6206(a) carries the same exemption into the rules.

This is the only state route to paid site work for a 16- or 17-year-old in these trades. Since Oct. 2, 2026, youth work permits come from LEO’s Youth Employment Permit Portal (YEPP). Whether a student placed under a 409.118 agreement also needs a YEPP permit, and whether the employer must register, is open. Confirm with LEO Wage and Hour. Changing; last checked Oct. 3, 2026.

Federal hazardous occupation orders

The federal orders (29 CFR Part 570 Subpart E) still apply under a 409.118 agreement. The ones that matter for the trades:

The student-learner exemption (29 CFR 570.50(c)) requires enrollment in a cooperative vocational training program under a state or local education authority, work that is “intermittent and for short periods of time,” and “direct and close supervision of a qualified and experienced person.” It opens only HOs 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 17. No federal order bars electrical work as such.

What this means for a program

• In-school lab and project-house work is instruction, not employment, so these bars do not apply to it. Your district’s own safety rules and insurance still do.
• Paid site work before 18 needs a 409.118 agreement on file and a task list that stays out of HO 2, 7 and 15 entirely and meets the student-learner terms for the others.
• Unpaid placements that pass the federal primary-beneficiary test are not employment. MDE’s rule for credit-bearing work-based learning (R 340.15) caps unpaid placements at 45 hours per experience.
• This guide is not legal advice. Have district counsel review any paid placement plan.

Wages, openings and demand

Electricians, plumbers, HVAC mechanics and power-line installers are all on Michigan’s 2026 Hot 50, with median wages from $29 to $51 an hour; carpenters, operating engineers and drafters are not.

Median wages are Michigan figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (S4IS extract for electricians, HVAC and carpenters; O*NET OnLine Michigan pages citing BLS 2025 data for the rest). Openings and growth are Michigan long-term projections for 2024 to 2034. The Hot 50 range is the 25th to 75th percentile hourly wage in Michigan’s Hot 50 Job Outlook through 2034 (Michigan Center for Data and Analytics, released Sept. 2, 2026).

Openings come mostly from replacing workers who retire or leave, not from growth. Carpenters show 1.1% growth but about 1,990 openings a year, and drafters show no growth but about 180 openings a year. Use openings, not growth, when you make the labor-market case in a new program application.

Apprentice pay is set by each sponsor. One example: Detroit EITC lists Inside Wireman apprentice pay from $25.23 to $42.05 an hour, and $56.07 after graduation. Other locals and non-union employers differ.

College credit, early middle college and funding

Construction Trades has statewide college credit agreements; electrical and HVAC do not, so their credit runs through local agreements, early middle college or apprenticeship partners.

Articulation

• Construction Trades (46.0000). MDE’s Architecture and Construction page lists statewide postsecondary credit agreements with Gogebic Community College, Macomb Community College and Northern Michigan University. Muskegon Area ISD lists articulated credit with Alpena CC, Davenport, Gogebic CC and NMU, plus dual enrollment with Alpena CC. Check each agreement’s expiration date with MDE OCTE.
• Electrical (46.0301) and HVAC (47.0201). No statewide agreement was found. Credit runs through local agreements, such as Careerline’s. Mott CC’s statewide agreements in related areas expire Nov. 1, 2026.
• Apprenticeship credit. Monroe County Community College’s Pathway to Apprenticeships Certificate (one year, launched Feb. 12, 2026, built with the Monroe/Lenawee AFL-CIO Skilled Trades Council) gives completers advance standing, a direct interview and credit toward related technical instruction hours with Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 671.

Early middle college

• Kalamazoo RESA. Its early middle college lists Electrical Technology and HVAC and Refrigeration among Architecture and Construction programs, with Kalamazoo Valley Community College.
• Capital Region Technical Early College (CRTEC). Run by Clinton County RESA, Eaton RESA and the Ingham ISD Wilson Talent Center. Students start in grade 11 and leave grade 13 with college credit; partner colleges include Lansing Community College, Baker, Bay, Davenport, Ferris State and Mid Michigan College. Whether CRTEC students can enter LCC’s selective lineworker program is a question for CRTEC.
• Washtenaw Technical Middle College. Students can choose from more than 135 Washtenaw Community College certificate and degree programs.
• Careerline Tech Center Early College, Dickinson-Iron TEC Early College and COOR ISD. Named in earlier research as trades-oriented early middle colleges. Their current program lists were not confirmed. Check MDE’s EMC list.

Early middle college works best in this cluster where the college side is a credit-bearing trades certificate. The hands-on hours that count toward a license still have to be earned on a job site.

Funding notes

State added-cost funding (School Aid Act §61a(1)) supports state-approved programs. The §61v CTE Expansion Grant shows $0 for FY2026-27 after Round 2 closed July 1, 2026, so do not plan equipment on it. Early middle college CTE runs through §61b.

Review status and sources

Status: Revised and source-checked Oct. 3, 2026, from a July 2026 research draft. Every wage range in the draft was replaced with BLS May 2025 Michigan medians and the 2026 Hot 50. Every apprenticeship hour figure now traces to a statute, LARA, a federal rule or the sponsor’s own page; figures that could not be traced were removed. This guide is not legal advice.

Open questions

Sources

Labor market

• CCL CTE Guide Occupations Wages and Openings 2025 (S4IS extract of BLS OEWS May 2025 and Projections Central 2024-2034)
• Michigan’s Hot 50 Job Outlook through 2034 (MCDA)
• Michigan Hot 50 report page
• O*NET OnLine Michigan wages (BLS 2025 data) and trends (Projections Central 2024-2034): 11-9021, 17-3011 wages, 17-3011 trends, 47-2061, 47-2073, 47-2152, 49-3042, 49-9051, 51-7011

Licensing and apprenticeship

• MCL 339.5715 Electrical journeyman’s license
• MCL 339.5717 Apprentice electrician registration
• Skilled Trades Regulation Act, Article 7 section list
• LARA electrical examination, licensing and registration
• Electrical Administrative Board general rules (R 338.1005a, older rule set)
• MCL 339.6115 Journey plumber
• MCL 339.6117 Apprentice plumber
• MCL 339.6113 Master plumber
• MCL 339.5807 Mechanical contractor
• LARA residential builder requirements
• 29 CFR 29.5 Registered apprenticeship standards
• IBEW Michigan apprenticeships
• Detroit Electrical Industry Training Center programs
• Plumbers Local 98 (Great Lakes Michigan Works listing)
• Pipefitters Local 85 (Great Lakes Michigan Works listing)
• Construction Careers Michigan: sheet metal workers
• UP Michigan Works: become an apprentice
• Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters flyer
• DTE apprentice class graduates to journeymen
• LCC Electrical Utility Lineworker program
• Mott CC Lineworker Pre-Apprenticeship
• MCCC Pathway to Apprenticeships Certificate
• NCCER HVACR catalog
• EPA 608 technician exam rules, 40 CFR 82 Subpart F App. D

Youth employment

• Mich. Admin. Code R 408.6208
• Mich. Admin. Code R 408.6206
• MCL 409.118
• MCL 409.120
• LEO Youth Employment Permit Portal (YEPP)
• 29 CFR Part 570 Subpart E, hazardous occupation orders

Programs and state CTE

• MDE Career Cluster and CIP list (Dec. 2025)
• MDE Architecture and Construction cluster page
• MDE Construction FAQ (May 2022)
• Muskegon Area ISD Construction Trades
• Careerline Tech Center Construction
• Careerline Tech Center Electrical
• Careerline Tech Center HVACR
• Careerline Tech Center Plumbing and Water Systems
• WMCI high school program
• St. Joseph County ISD HVAC/Electrical/Plumbing
• Randolph Career and Technical Center
• Char-Em ISD Energy Fundamentals: Lineworker Emphasis
• State Street Academy lineman program
• North Central Michigan College skilled trades training
• Kalamazoo RESA Early/Middle College
• Capital Region Technical Early College
• Washtenaw Technical Middle College