Last reviewed: September 2026 · By the HVAC Brief Editorial Team · Our sourcing and editorial standards
US training programmes awarded 23,251 HVAC credentials in 2023-24 against about 40,100 projected annual openings, a replacement ratio of 0.58. The formal pipeline covers a little over half the openings the federal government projects each year. Where those credentials come from, school by school, is in our analysis of HVAC training programs: 669 institutions, and no single one dominates.
Every discussion of the technician shortage quotes the 40,100 figure. The other half of the equation, how many people the training system actually produces, is not published anywhere. This is that number, and the ratio between them.
The demand side of the HVAC labour shortage is well documented. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 40,100 openings a year for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers between 2024 and 2034, with employment growing 8%, much faster than the average occupation. Those openings by state, and why the state projections add up to more than the national one, are in our HVAC job outlook by state; who is filling them is in HVAC workforce demographics.
The supply side is not documented at all. No trade association, government summary or industry report publishes how many people complete HVAC training in a year. It is available, in the federal completions data that every college reports, and it has to be assembled rather than looked up.
The pipeline, measured
In the 2023-24 academic year, 669 US institutions awarded 23,251 credentials in the federal programme category for heating, air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration maintenance technology. 20,997 were certificates and 2,254 were associate degrees.
The trend is up. Completions rose 27.6% between 2014-15 and 2023-24, from 18,218 to 23,251. Nothing in this data supports a claim that HVAC training is collapsing.
| Academic year | Total awards | Certificates | Associate degrees | Institutions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | 18,218 | 16,077 | 2,141 | 631 |
| 2015-16 | 18,236 | 16,146 | 2,090 | 639 |
| 2016-17 | 18,422 | 16,353 | 2,069 | 641 |
| 2017-18 | 19,781 | 17,719 | 2,062 | 662 |
| 2018-19 | 19,885 | 17,840 | 2,045 | 654 |
| 2019-20 | 19,962 | 18,090 | 1,872 | 663 |
| 2020-21 | 19,598 | 17,705 | 1,893 | 666 |
| 2021-22 | 21,893 | 19,861 | 2,032 | 673 |
| 2022-23 | 21,417 | 19,277 | 2,140 | 676 |
| 2023-24 | 23,251 | 20,997 | 2,254 | 669 |
The replacement ratio
Put the two series together and the derived figure is straightforward: annual completions divided by projected annual openings.
23,251 divided by 40,100 is 0.58. The formal training system produces enough credentials to cover 58% of projected annual openings, leaving 16,849 a year to be filled some other way.
The arithmetic on the openings themselves is worth separating, because “openings” is not the same as “new jobs”. BLS projects employment rising 34,500 over ten years, an average of 3,450 a year. The remaining 36,650 openings a year exist because people leave, whether to another occupation or out of the workforce. 91% of the annual opening figure is replacement, not growth.
That reframes the shortage. It is not mainly a story about an expanding industry outrunning its schools. It is a story about retention.
What the ratio does not measure
A ratio of 0.58 does not mean 16,849 jobs go unfilled. Formal postsecondary training is one route into the trade and not the dominant one. BLS lists typical entry as a postsecondary nondegree award followed by long-term on-the-job training, and registered apprenticeships, employer-run programmes and informal entry are all outside the completions data.
The honest reading is that 0.58 is a floor on the formal-training contribution, not a measure of total entrants. What it does support is a comparison over time, because the same measure applied across ten years shows the formal pipeline growing 28% while the projected opening rate has stayed near 9% of employment.
Training intensity by state
Raw award counts follow population. The more useful measure is awards against the size of the state’s existing HVAC workforce, which shows which states train their own technicians and which rely on drawing them in.
| State | Awards | Institutions | Employed | Per 1,000 employed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 223 | 3 | 790 | 282.3 |
| Illinois | 1,455 | 31 | 8,510 | 171.0 |
| Kentucky | 956 | 17 | 6,230 | 153.5 |
| Georgia | 1,762 | 28 | 12,210 | 144.3 |
| Louisiana | 660 | 16 | 5,040 | 131.0 |
| Oklahoma | 571 | 23 | 4,820 | 118.5 |
| Mississippi | 304 | 13 | 2,960 | 102.7 |
| Minnesota | 456 | 11 | 5,190 | 87.9 |
| North Carolina | 1,208 | 38 | 13,750 | 87.9 |
| California | 2,900 | 42 | 34,020 | 85.2 |
The national rate is 58.0 awards per 1,000 employed HVAC mechanics. Alaska’s 282 is the highest figure in the table and rests on the smallest workforce in the country, 790 people, so it should be read as a small-base artefact rather than a policy success.
| State | Awards | Institutions | Employed | Per 1,000 employed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 470 | 30 | 13,570 | 34.6 |
| Michigan | 466 | 18 | 13,720 | 34.0 |
| New Jersey | 300 | 8 | 10,680 | 28.1 |
| Florida | 918 | 39 | 38,290 | 24.0 |
| Utah | 114 | 7 | 5,370 | 21.2 |
| New York | 418 | 13 | 22,710 | 18.4 |
| Colorado | 151 | 7 | 8,870 | 17.0 |
| Oregon | 56 | 1 | 3,690 | 15.2 |
| Maryland | 70 | 4 | 6,380 | 11.0 |
| Idaho | 38 | 4 | 3,570 | 10.6 |
Maryland, Idaho and Colorado each award fewer than 12 credentials per 1,000 employed HVAC mechanics. Illinois and Kentucky award more than 150. That is more than a tenfold spread in how intensively states train for the same occupation, and it is not explained by wages: Colorado’s median annual wage for the occupation is higher than Kentucky’s.
Frequently asked questions
How many new HVAC technicians does the US train each year?
US colleges and training institutions awarded 23,251 HVAC credentials in the 2023-24 academic year, the most recent year published, across 669 institutions. That counts first-major completions in the federal programme category for heating, air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration technology.
Is there really an HVAC technician shortage?
The pipeline is smaller than the demand. BLS projects about 40,100 openings a year for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers over 2024 to 2034. Formal training programmes produced 23,251 credentials in 2023-24, which is 58% of that figure. The gap is 16,849 a year, though formal training is not the only way into the trade.
What is the replacement ratio?
It is annual programme completions divided by projected annual openings. For 2023-24 it is 23,251 divided by 40,100, or 0.58. A ratio of 1.0 would mean formal training alone could fill every projected opening. No published source tracks this figure, so it is computed here.
Is HVAC training growing or shrinking?
Growing. Completions rose from 18,218 in 2014-15 to 23,251 in 2023-24, up 27.6%. The number of institutions offering the programme moved from 631 to 669.
Do most HVAC technicians have a degree?
No. Of the 23,251 credentials awarded in 2023-24, 20,997 were certificates and 2,254 were associate degrees. BLS lists the typical entry-level education for the occupation as a postsecondary nondegree award, followed by long-term on-the-job training.
Which states train the most HVAC technicians?
California awarded the most credentials in 2023-24 at 2,900, followed by Texas at 1,896 and Georgia at 1,762. Measured against the size of each state’s existing HVAC workforce, Illinois and Kentucky train the most, and Maryland, Idaho and Colorado the fewest.
How much of the annual opening figure is growth rather than replacement?
Most of it is replacement. BLS projects employment rising by 34,500 between 2024 and 2034, an average of 3,450 a year, against about 40,100 total annual openings. The remaining 36,650 a year comes from workers leaving the occupation or the labour force.
What does an HVAC technician earn?
The median annual wage for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers was $59,810 in May 2024, or $28.75 an hour, according to BLS. State medians in our table range from about $47,000 to about $84,000.
Does this count apprenticeships?
No, and that is the main limitation. IPEDS covers credentials awarded by institutions that participate in federal student aid programmes. Registered apprenticeships, employer-run training and people who enter through unrelated routes and learn on the job are not in this count, so the ratio is a floor on formal training rather than a measure of total entrants.
How many people work in HVAC in total?
BLS counted 425,200 heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers in 2024. That is the occupation. A larger figure, about 1.36 million, covers total employment at plumbing, heating and air conditioning contractors, which is an industry count that includes plumbers and every office role.
Methodology and limitations
- Completions: NCES IPEDS Completions component, CIP code 47.0201, Heating, Air Conditioning, Ventilation and Refrigeration Maintenance Technology/Technician. Academic years 2014-15 through 2023-24. The revised (_RV) file is used for every year where NCES has published one.
- First majors only (MAJORNUM = 1). Second majors are excluded so that a student is not counted twice.
- Award levels are summed at leaf level only. IPEDS publishes totals alongside components: code 1, certificates of less than one year, is the sum of codes 20 and 21, which replaced it, and codes 12 to 15 are broader totals. Adding every level present would double count. The 1 = 20 + 21 identity was checked in every year where both forms appear.
- Openings: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration mechanics and installers, SOC 49-9021, 2024-34 projections, stating about 40,100 openings a year, employment of 425,200 in 2024, projected growth of 8% and employment change of 34,500.
- Employment by state: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024, SOC 49-9021. The May 2024 release is used rather than an earlier cached release so that both sides of the per-1,000 measure share a vintage.
- The national per-1,000 rate uses only the 50 states and the District of Columbia on both sides. IPEDS awards include Puerto Rico and other territories, which OEWS state files do not cover; the 244 awards outside the 51 jurisdictions are excluded from that ratio and included in the national award total.
- The replacement ratio compares an actual count to a projection. The numerator is an observed award count for one year; the denominator is a ten-year annual average from a model. They are not the same kind of number and the ratio should be read as an order-of-magnitude comparison.
- Registered apprenticeship completions are not included. The Department of Labor publishes apprenticeship data, but it could not be verified from a primary source at the time of writing, so no apprenticeship figure is quoted here rather than quoting an unverified one.
- Not every credential holder enters the trade, and not every entrant holds a credential. IPEDS counts awards, not placements.
- State award counts are assigned by the institution’s location, not the student’s residence or where they eventually work.
Sources
- National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS Completions, survey years 2015 to 2024, CIP 47.0201.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers, archived copy.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024 state files, SOC 49-9021.
The HVAC Brief is an independent trade publication. We do not sell equipment, take manufacturer advertising, or accept payment for placement in our research. Corrections welcome.
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