Brick Mason Salary

Brick masons are people who use bricks to build things.  There are a number of different types of brick masons, or bricklayers, or block masons, or "brickies" (the cloyingly British term for a brick mason) as they are also known.  A brick layer is basically any person who uses bricks to build something.  It could be a brick pathway, but most often, it is a brick wall.  This is a job that tends to be relatively working class, or proletarian, if you will, and generally involves simple manual labor.  So here we'll go through what bricklaying is, what the training is involved, and what you can expect to get paid.

Brick Mason Training

This is a relatively on-the-job training type of job.  You aren't going to spend much time actually learning how to lay bricks, and the craft is usually not regulated, though there may be unions and guilds depending on where you are.  This is often a job held by construction workers.  These workers are generally going to be trained in a number of disciplines, of which bricklaying is one.  We should also differentiate that brick mason can more broadly mean someone who actually makes bricks, but that profession is more or less dead, as the process is largely mechanical anymore.  So most brick masons are actually bricklayers, because they are usually laying brick significantly more than they are actually making brick.  In the United States, it is difficult to get a job without a high school diploma, but this is a job where you don't technically need one.  You might need certain types of specialized training or experience depending on where you work, but since this job is a craftsman job, the apprentice model tends to be the most popular method of training.  So most of the training is on the job.

What Does  a Brick Mason Do?

The job mostly involves, as the name implies, laying brick.  You put the brick down and use cement to keep it in place.  You want and walkways you build to be even and easy to walk on, and you want any walls you build to be flat and straight.  That's really all there is to that one.  Generally, this is a pretty simple job.  Lay the brick, lay the cement, lay the next brick.  Clean around the edges so it looks nice, and then move on to the next brick.  It is a pretty simple process.  As we said, bricklayers are generally multitalented, and do a number of other jobs in the construction field.  This has a large amount to do with the fact that bricklaying is usually the final process in a construction job, and in that it usually behooves construction workers to have a number of skills so as to positively affect both their marketability and their pay levels.  This means they may also have skills at mixing and laying cement, basic carpentry, and a number of construction skills as well.  They may also have abilities and training to use some heavy machinery (this, by the way, DOES require a certification, but is unrelated to brick laying), and do various other chores that are perhaps best known as jobs of the construction industry.  Additionally, a bricklayer could know how to draw up an architectural design of a building and even know a thing or two about engineering.  With this industry, the more you know about construction across the board, the more valuable you are as an asset.

Anyway, these jobs change from country to country.  In the less developed countries, bricklayer is still very much a full-time job, and it can play any number of roles.  European countries also have a long tradition of bricklaying being a main working class job, but as they have become more developed, they too have seen the jobs merged with a number of other professions.  So it really depends on where you are and what your skills are.

Brick Mason Salary

Naturally, the skills you have and where you live are central to what you get paid.  The more you know how to do, the more you will get paid, as a significant amount of construction work is contract based, therefore making your pay proportionate to the services you will perform for your company.  That said, the typical salary for a brick mason in the United States is going to start out for around $30,000 a year, and is then going to go up over time.  There are quotes online of brick masons making up to $85,000 a year, but this is going to depend on a few things:  first, the construction market, second, your marketability, which we have discussed, and then your reputation and experience.

The job market, honestly, is not good for construction right now.  The housing boom crash means that not only are there countless homes on the market, but that there are thousands upon thousands more that are empty.  There are absurd amounts of homes on the market, and on top of it, credit has dried up.  As a result, we probably can't expect the housing market to pick back up any time soon, and construction is going to have to wait for the demand for homes to catch up to the supply.  So if you don't have a few years before you plan on going into this, I would avoid going into anything construction related for a while.  You may be jobless for quite a while, and as the least experienced - if that is indeed what you are - then you will be spending a while looking and will likely be the first cut, because you have the least experience.

That said, if you can get a job in a booming housing and construction market, then this is a good job to have.  It offers steady work in steady industries, and makes you enough money to be able to provide for your family.  If you are in other countries, the amount you will be paid is different, but the market may be better.