Drywall Cost Calculator for Illinois - Free 2026 Cost Estimates

Illinois Drywall Labor Costs — Verified from BLS OEWS (2025)

Every figure on this page is a published U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics value. Last verified 2026-06-20.

In Illinois, drywall & ceiling tile installers — the core trade for drywall work — earn a mean wage of $34.95/hr ($72,690 per year) in the 2025 BLS OEWS release. That is 14% above the national average (national mean $63,600 per year). Illinois employs about 740 drywall & ceiling tile installers statewide. Related trades that price into a typical drywall job include construction laborers ($67,620/yr), first-line supervisors of construction trades ($103,450/yr). Because labor is the largest variable cost on most drywall projects, these published state wage levels are the biggest single reason drywall costs differ between Illinois and other states. Every figure here is a mean value published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and is refreshed automatically when BLS releases new OEWS data.

Across the trades that touch a typical drywall job in Illinois, BLS reports mean wages of drywall & ceiling tile installers at $72,690 per year ($34.95/hr); construction laborers at $67,620 per year ($32.51/hr); first-line supervisors of construction trades at $103,450 per year ($49.74/hr). The spread between first-line supervisors of construction trades ($103,450) and construction laborers ($67,620) reflects differences in skill, certification, and supervisory responsibility on Illinois job sites, and it is why a detailed, line-item estimate beats a single blended rate when you are budgeting drywall work.

Half of Illinois drywall & ceiling tile installers earn less than the median of $63,180 per year — below the $72,690 mean, which a smaller number of higher earners pulls upward. For budgeting, the median is often the more realistic figure for routine drywall crews. BLS counts roughly 740 drywall & ceiling tile installers, 35,940 construction laborers, 19,340 first-line supervisors of construction trades employed across Illinois, a measure of how deep the local drywall-trade labor pool is and how much competition for crews you can expect when scheduling work.

When you budget a drywall job in Illinois, treat these BLS wage levels as the labor-rate floor: a crew's billed rate adds overhead, insurance, equipment, and margin on top of the $34.95/hr mean wage shown above. Because Illinois's drywall & ceiling tile installers wages sit 14% above the national average, a drywall quote that comes in far below these published rates is worth a second look — labor that cheap usually signals a different scope, materials, or crew experience. Use the calculator on this page to combine these Illinois labor rates with your project's material quantities for a complete estimate.

Wages are statewide means published by BLS and reflect labor cost only — not the total installed cost of a project. Use the calculator below for a full materials-and-labor estimate, and always obtain written bids from licensed Illinois contractors.