Drafters, All Other Salary

It’s a stretch — at the median salary of $69K, rent takes 30% of take-home pay. A 2-bedroom at the HUD Fair Market Rent runs $1,350/month. The 30% guideline puts the comfortable ceiling at roughly $1,400/month in rent — so roommates or a 1-bedroom would ease the math significantly.

The 10th-percentile wage — what new drafters, all others typically earn — is $48K/year. Take-home on that works out to about $2,907/month. At HUD’s $1,350/month FMR, rent would take 46% of that take-home — above the 30% guideline, so a 1-bedroom or shared housing is likely necessary starting out.

Pay here is roughly in line with the national average — $69K locally vs. $64K nationally, a 9% difference.

Utah pays $69K median vs. the U.S. average of $64K — that’s +9%. After adjusting for local cost of living (RPP 98.54), the purchasing-power equivalent is $70K — still ahead of the national median.

The median is $69,420 a year, that works out to about $33 an hour. But the range is wide: entry-level workers start around $48,450, and experienced drafters, all others can clear $108,740. These are BLS numbers, based on employer-reported data, not self-reported surveys.

On that salary, you'd take home roughly $4,500/month after taxes. A 2-bedroom here rents for about $1,350/month, which eats 30% of your paycheck. That's under the 30% guideline most financial planners use, so the numbers work.

Utah has a Regional Price Parity of 98.54 (100 is the national average). That's below average, your money stretches further here than the raw salary number suggests. After cost-of-living adjustment, the median drafters, all other salary is worth about $70,449 in national-average purchasing power.

The table above ranks every state by median pay for this role. Keep in mind that the highest-paying states tend to have the highest costs of living, so the top salary doesn't always mean the most money in your pocket.