What tree workers earn, country by country

Pay in tree work moves with the job, the region, the employer and your ticket. The government figures below give a rough floor and middle for each country. Each one is for a named job title, and the title is not always the same from country to country.

None of these are offers. They are averages, ranges or legal minimums. Climbers often earn more than groundies on the same crew, and the official figures below do not split the two. Where a source gives no figure, this guide leaves the cell out instead of guessing.

At a glance

Country	Figure	Data
US	US$50,960 a year, median	May 2025
Canada	CA$30.00 an hour, median	Updated November 19, 2025
UK	£15.20 an hour, median	ASHE 2025, provisional
Australia	AU$28.28 an hour, award Level 3	Pay guide effective July 1, 2026
NZ	NZ$26 to NZ$40 an hour	No date shown

The job title and the kind of figure differ in each row. The country sections below say which.

United States

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes wages for the job called tree trimmers and pruners, code 37-3013. Its Occupational Outlook Handbook page on grounds maintenance workers gives a median hourly wage of US$24.50 for tree trimmers and pruners, for May 2025. The same page gives US$19.27 an hour for all grounds maintenance workers together.

The career database O*NET reprints the BLS 2025 wage data, with the figures shown below as annual pay. Its national wage page for tree trimmers and pruners shows a median of US$50,960 a year, which matches US$24.50 an hour over a 2,080 hour year. The page said it was updated on August 25, 2026.

Place	Median a year	Low to high
United States	US$50,960	US$37,940 to US$80,310
Oregon	US$75,440	US$51,220 to US$94,470
New Jersey	US$71,940	US$52,830 to US$80,730
Illinois	US$64,450	US$50,300 to US$90,840
Washington	US$63,850	US$44,530 to US$93,620
California	US$62,550	US$35,750 to US$92,270
Massachusetts	US$62,550	US$49,020 to US$80,910
New York	US$62,400	US$41,600 to US$83,700
Florida	US$46,070	US$28,690 to US$58,210
Texas	US$39,880	US$35,610 to US$49,220

Low is the tenth percentile and high is the ninetieth: a tenth of workers earn the low figure or less, and a tenth earn the high figure or more. The median is the middle wage: half earn more and half earn less. These are only some of the states, picked to show the spread, and the O*NET site has a page for each one. A crew in a high-cost metro area and a crew in a low-cost rural area are both inside the national figure.

Canada

Job Bank, the federal government's labour market site, runs a wage report for arborists. The report picks the occupation Arborist under NOC code 22114. The code's own title is landscape and horticulture technicians and specialists, and its description also covers gardens, parks, golf courses and nurseries. So the figures cover a wider group than climbing crews alone.

The wages are hourly, in Canadian dollars. The page says the wages were updated on November 19, 2025, and showed a date modified of August 7, 2026.

Region	Median an hour	Low to high
Canada	CA$30.00	CA$21.00 to CA$40.87
Ontario	CA$31.05	CA$22.00 to CA$42.82
Quebec	CA$27.00	CA$20.00 to CA$38.00
B.C.	CA$25.00	CA$20.00 to CA$33.00
Alberta	CA$23.00	CA$18.00 to CA$32.00
Manitoba	CA$21.50	CA$18.00 to CA$27.00

B.C. is British Columbia. Job Bank also lists the other provinces and many smaller regions, such as Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver Island. The Yukon shows no figure (N/A) for arborists.

The same site has a separate wage report for the code covering landscaping and grounds maintenance labourers, NOC 85121. Its description includes pruning shrubs and trees as directed and running chain saws, and it does not name tree climbing. For Canada that report gives a median of CA$20.75 an hour, from CA$17.00 to CA$28.00. It is a general labourer figure, not a tree groundworker figure, and Job Bank files it under a different title on the page.

United Kingdom

The National Careers Service has a tree surgeon job profile. It lists tree climber and arborist as other titles for the job. It gives a starter salary of £25,000 a year and an experienced salary of £35,000 a year. It gives typical hours of 40 to 43 a week and says the work can include weekends at short notice. The page shows no date for these figures.

The Office for National Statistics publishes the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). It has no row for tree surgeons alone. The job code that holds them is 5119, agricultural and fishing trades not elsewhere classified, which also covers other outdoor trades. In the ASHE occupation tables, the 2025 provisional edition gives this for that code:

Measure	Code 5119	All UK jobs
Hourly pay, median	£15.20	£17.96
Hourly pay, full-time median	£15.37	Not stated
Hourly pay, 25th to 75th	£13.49 to £18.67	Not stated
Annual pay, median	£27,676	£32,890
Annual pay, full-time median	£30,062	Not stated

Gross pay, all employees unless marked. The table counts only about 19,000 employees for this code. For comparison, the same edition gives a median of £14.00 an hour for gardeners and landscape gardeners.

The government's national minimum wage rates from April 2026 are £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for ages 18 to 20 and £8.00 for the apprentice rate. The page says the apprentice rate applies to apprentices under 19, and to those aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship.

Australia

The government's Your Career site has an arborist page. Its data shows about 7,000 people employed as arborists, 80% of them full-time, with an average age of 36. It shows no pay figure for the job, so no arborist earnings figure is given here.

The Fair Work Ombudsman's copy of the Gardening and Landscaping Services Award 2020, code MA000101, comes with a pay guide published on August 28, 2026. The rates apply from the first full pay period starting on or after July 1, 2026. Adult full-time minimums are below.

Level	Weekly minimum	Hourly minimum
Introductory	AU$978.10	AU$25.74
Level 1	AU$1,004.90	AU$26.44
Level 2	AU$1,029.10	AU$27.08
Level 3	AU$1,074.70	AU$28.28
Level 4	AU$1,119.10	AU$29.45
Level 5	AU$1,154.30	AU$30.38

Casual employees get a higher hourly rate under the same pay guide: AU$35.35 at Level 3 and AU$37.98 at Level 5. The guide also lists allowances, including AU$22.38 a week for first aid and a leading hand allowance of AU$0.59 to AU$2.06 an hour, depending on how many people the leading hand is in charge of.

Apprentice rates in the pay guide, for apprenticeships started after January 1, 2014, rise by year of apprenticeship:

Year	Left school before year 12	Completed year 12
1st	AU$14.73	AU$16.20
2nd	AU$17.67	AU$19.14
3rd	AU$22.09	AU$22.09
4th	AU$27.98	AU$27.98

These are legal minimums for work the award covers, not typical pay. The award's coverage clause describes gardening and landscaping work such as landscape installation, garden maintenance and grounds. It does not mention tree work by name. Whether a given tree job falls under this award or another one is a question for the Fair Work Ombudsman, and the tables are a reference point for related work only.

New Zealand

Tahatu, the government careers site, has an arborist page with hourly pay before tax, in New Zealand dollars. It shows a lower end of NZ$24 an hour, a most common range of NZ$26 to NZ$40 an hour, and an upper end of NZ$48 an hour. The page says about 1,500 people work as arborists, from the 2023 Census.

For comparison, the same page says the average pay across all jobs in New Zealand is NZ$34 an hour or NZ$70,000 a year. That is the all-jobs average, not an arborist figure. The page shows no date for the arborist bands.

The legal floor is set separately. From April 1, 2026 the adult minimum wage is NZ$23.95 an hour, and the starting-out and training minimum is NZ$19.16, according to the Employment New Zealand notice.

Reading these numbers

The job title differs by country. US tree trimmers and pruners, Canadian landscape and horticulture technicians and a UK tree surgeon are not the same group.
The unit differs by country. The US state table is yearly, Canada and New Zealand are hourly, the UK has both, and the Australian tables are minimums.
The date differs by country. The US figures are May 2025 data and the Canadian wages were updated on November 19, 2025. The UK careers page and the New Zealand page show no date.
Figures from different countries are not comparable without converting currency and allowing for tax, benefits and cost of living.

What employers ask for is covered in the other guides, and the sample jobs board shows the layout of a listing. The sample jobs are not real offers.