TradeCareerPath Editorial Team

The TradeCareerPath editorial team produces career guides for more than 100 skilled trades, from electrician and plumber to medical assistant, paralegal, and truck driver. Our work is research-led, data-sourced, and reviewed against a written editorial standard.

How we source data

Every salary figure, employment count, and projection on this site comes from a published government dataset. We do not estimate, smooth, or interpolate.

• Salary and employment data comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program, refreshed when BLS releases new tables.
• Projections come from the BLS Employment Projections program (10-year national outlook and state outlook tables).
• Apprenticeship contacts and program data come from the U.S. Department of Labor and state apprenticeship agencies.
• Licensing requirements come from state licensing boards and CareerOneStop, with each requirement linked back to the issuing agency.
• Geographic context uses Census Bureau state and metropolitan area definitions.

Each data claim on a guide is footnoted with a link to the issuing source.

How we research trade content

For each trade, our team reviews the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook entry, the relevant state licensing statutes, the major industry credentialing bodies, and current apprenticeship and program offerings. We summarize that material into reader-friendly guides that explain what the job involves, what training is required, what licensure looks like, and what the wage and outlook picture is at the national and state level.

How content is updated

When the BLS publishes a new OEWS or Projections release, we re-run our data pipeline to refresh tables, snapshots, and state pages. Licensing pages are reviewed when state agencies post rule changes. Every page carries a visible “Updated” date so readers can see when the figures were last refreshed.

Editorial standards

We follow the standards published at our editorial policy. The short version: no guaranteed-employment claims, no salary promises, no financial-aid claims we cannot support, and no superlative ranking language (“best”, “top”, “#1”) that we cannot defend with a published methodology. Our compliance review runs automatically on every content edit.

Subject-matter review

For trades that require licensure or hands-on credentialing, we are adding named subject-matter reviewers (master electricians, ASE-certified mechanics, registered nurses, licensed cosmetologists, and similar). Where a reviewer has been assigned, you will see “Reviewed by” with their name and credential under the guide byline. Where the slot is open, the byline reflects only the editorial team that produced the page.

Founder

TradeCareerPath.com was founded by Brad Fishbein, a Florida Licensed Mold Assessor and council-certified Microbial Investigator. Brad continues to author mold-inspection and home-inspection content directly. Trade content outside that scope is produced by the editorial team described on this page.