Trades / Roofing
Roofing
Covering roofs with shingle, slate, tile, metal and membrane, and the flashing that keeps water out.
O*NET defines roofers as workers who cover roofs with shingles, slate, asphalt, aluminum, wood or related materials, and who may spray roofs, sidings and walls with material to bind, seal, insulate or soundproof them.
The roofer’s core tasks in O*NET include inspecting problem roofs, setting up scaffolding to provide safe access, and cutting felt, shingles and flashing to fit the angles formed by walls, vents and intersecting roof surfaces. O*NET records 133 tool commodities for the occupation. Roofing is the trade in which fall protection is most bound up with the tool kit, and the archive documents the harness and anchor beside the hatchet and the nailer.
O*NET OnLine, the occupational database of the US Department of Labor, reports for Roofers (47-2181.00), 166,900 people in 2025, a median wage of $26.65 an hour ($55,440 a year), projected growth for 2025–2035 described as faster than average (5% to 6%), and 12,000 projected job openings.
Core tools
3 of 13 core tools written.
- Utility knife
- Chalk line
- Speed square
- roofing hatchet Not yet written
- roofing nailer Not yet written
- tin snips Not yet written
- hand seamer Not yet written
- shingle shovel Not yet written
- slate ripper Not yet written
- propane torch Not yet written
- heat gun Not yet written
- caulking gun Not yet written
- ladder Not yet written