journeyman

A man who served his apprenticeship in a trade and worked as a fully qualified employee. The term originated in the regulations of the medieval trade guilds; it derives from the French journée (‘a day’) because journeymen were paid daily.

Each guild normally recognized three grades of worker – apprentices, journeymen, and masters. As a qualified tradesman, a journeyman might have become a master with his own business but most remained employees.