Welder
You fuse metal for a living. Learn to lay a clean bead and you can build bridges, pipelines, ships, and skyscrapers all over the country.
Also called: Welder-fabricator, Pipe welder, Structural welder, Combo welder (combination welder), Boilermaker welder, Fitter-welder, MIG/TIG/stick welder, Cutter, Solderer, Brazer, Rig welder
What it pays
Welding pays a solid blue-collar living, with the national median around $51,000/year ($24.50/hr) as of May 2024 per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The real money is in specialization, certifications (especially 6G pipe), overtime, and willingness to travel. Combo welders, pipeline hands, and underwater/rig welders can clear six figures, but those top numbers come with long hours, travel, and risk.
Pay swings hard by industry, state, and overtime. Pipeline and shutdown work pay a 'per diem' (tax-advantaged daily cash for being away from home, commonly $100-$165/day) plus 'rig pay' or 'truck pay' if you own your welding rig. As a benchmark, the 2025-26 Pipeliners Local 798 (UA) journeyman welder scale runs roughly $52-$53/hr plus about $165/day per diem. Union scale (boilermakers, ironworkers, pipefitters) adds health benefits and a pension. Texas, the Gulf Coast, Alaska, North Dakota, and other energy/industrial regions pay above average. Overtime at time-and-a-half is where a lot of welders make their real income.
What they do
A welder joins pieces of metal together by melting them with intense heat and adding filler metal so they fuse into one solid piece as they cool. That sounds simple, but a good weld has to be strong, clean, and free of cracks or gaps, because what you weld holds people's lives. Welders build and repair almost everything made of metal: the steel frames of buildings, oil and gas pipelines, bridges, ships, railcars, pressure vessels, farm equipment, race cars, and aircraft. "Cutting" (slicing metal with a torch or plasma arc), "soldering," and "brazing" (joining metal at lower temperatures, often for thinner parts or electronics) fall under the same official job category the government tracks (BLS calls it "Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers," code 51-4121).
Most of the work comes down to a handful of welding processes you'll hear named constantly: stick (SMAW), MIG (GMAW), flux-core (FCAW), and TIG (GTAW). Stick and flux-core are the workhorses for thick structural steel and outdoor jobs. MIG is fast and common in shops and fabrication. TIG is the slow, precise, high-skill process used on stainless, aluminum, and pipe where the weld has to be perfect. A welder who can run several of these well is called a "combo welder" and gets paid more.
Who hires welders? Manufacturing plants, fabrication shops, construction companies, shipyards, refineries, pipeline contractors, railroads, the military and defense contractors, auto and aerospace makers, and your local repair shop. Some welders punch a clock at the same plant for 30 years; others chase pipeline and shutdown work across state lines for big money and long hours. The trade rewards people who are patient, steady-handed, and care about doing it right, not just fast. You can get into it in under a year, and unlike a lot of jobs, your skill is tested by a physical weld that either passes inspection or it doesn't, so good welders are hard to fake and always in demand somewhere.
A typical day
- Show up, read the job's blueprints or a Welding Procedure Specification (WPS), and figure out what joints need welding, in what positions, with what process and settings.
- Clean and prep the metal: grind off rust, paint, and mill scale, bevel the edges of thick pieces, and clamp or tack everything in place so it doesn't move.
- Set up your machine: pick the right rod or wire, dial in amperage/voltage, set gas flow for MIG/TIG, and strike an arc.
- Lay down weld beads, watching the puddle the whole time, controlling heat and travel speed so the weld penetrates fully without burning through or leaving slag.
- Chip and wire-brush slag off stick/flux-core welds, then inspect your own work for cracks, porosity, and undercut before anyone else sees it.
- Use a cutting torch or plasma cutter to slice steel to size, gouge out bad welds, or dismantle old structures.
- Grind welds smooth where appearance or fit matters, and fix any spots that didn't pass.
- Move between positions and heights: flat on a bench, overhead under a beam, kneeling in a trench, or strapped into a harness up on structural steel.
- Keep your gear in order: change tips and nozzles, swap gas bottles, troubleshoot a machine that's feeding wire badly.
- Submit work for inspection (visual, X-ray, or bend tests on critical jobs) and re-weld anything that gets rejected.
Where you work
Welding is physical, hot, loud, and not for the faint of heart. You'll work in factories and fab shops (often with decent ventilation but lots of noise), on outdoor construction and pipeline sites (rain, mud, heat, and cold), inside ships, tanks, and boilers (tight, confined spaces), and sometimes hundreds of feet up on structural steel. The arc throws UV light hot enough to sunburn your skin and "flash" your eyes if you're careless, so you're always behind a hood, gloves, a flame-resistant jacket, and steel-toe boots. Fumes are a real hazard, so respirators and ventilation matter. Expect sparks, hot metal, grinding dust, and the occasional burn. Shop jobs are often steady 40-hour weeks with overtime; construction, shipyard, refinery shutdown, and pipeline work can mean 50-70 hour weeks, night shifts, working out of town for weeks at a stretch, and seasonal slow periods. The physical toll is real over the years: bad knees, shoulders, eyes, and lungs are common if you don't protect yourself. The flip side is you're rarely chained to a desk, the work is hands-on, and at the end of the day you can point at something solid you built.
How to get in
There's no single road in. The three realistic paths are: a short welding program at a community college or trade school, a registered apprenticeship (paid) through a union or employer, or starting as a shop helper and learning on the job. Most welders combine these: a few months of school to learn the basics, then get hired and certified on the equipment your employer actually uses. The thing that gets you hired and paid is passing weld tests, not a diploma on the wall.
The most common entry. You learn the main processes (stick, MIG, flux-core, TIG), blueprint reading, and prep on real machines, and you usually leave with the skills to pass an entry weld test. Community colleges are far cheaper than private welding academies. Look for programs that prep you for AWS certification.
You get paid to learn under journeymen through a union (Boilermakers, Ironworkers, or UA pipefitters) or an employer. Combines paid on-the-job hours with classroom instruction. Best route for benefits, a pension, and structured advancement. Find them on apprenticeship.gov.
Get hired at a fabrication shop, manufacturer, or repair shop doing grinding, prep, and material handling, then learn to weld on the job and test up. No upfront tuition, but advancement depends on a good employer willing to train you and let you practice.
Apprenticeships
Length: About 3 to 5 years to reach journeyman (Ironworkers and Boilermakers run roughly 3-4 years; UA pipefitter/pipe-welder programs run about 5 years), combining roughly 144 hours/year of classroom instruction with paid on-the-job training.
Earn while you learn: You're paid from day one. Apprentices typically start around 40-60% of journeyman scale and get raises every 6-12 months as you log hours and pass benchmarks, reaching full journeyman pay (plus benefits and a pension in union programs) by the end.
How to find one: Search apprenticeship.gov (the U.S. Department of Labor's official finder; filter by occupation code 51-4121 for welders). Contact your local union halls directly: Boilermakers (IBB), Ironworkers (IW), and the United Association (UA) pipefitters all run strong welding apprenticeships. You can also ask fabrication shops, shipyards, and manufacturers near you whether they sponsor a registered apprenticeship, and check CareerOneStop for programs in your state.
Certifications
The baseline national credential that proves you can lay a sound weld to a specific procedure (structural, sheet metal, pipeline, chemical refinery). Tested at AWS Accredited Testing Facilities. Budget roughly $35-$75+ in registration plus per-procedure test fees; prep courses are extra. Check the current AWS price list before you book.
Most welders are 'certified' by passing the hiring company's weld test to a Welding Procedure Specification (WPS). This is the certification that actually gets you the paycheck. A '6G' pipe certification (welding a fixed pipe at a 45-degree angle, the hardest position) is the gold standard and a big pay bump.
Code qualification for welding boilers, pressure vessels, and high-pressure piping (often documented on ASME Form QW-484A). The employer or contractor qualifies and certifies you to Section IX; it stays valid as long as you keep using the process. Critical for refinery, power-plant, and pipeline jobs where a failed weld is catastrophic. Pipeline cross-country work is usually qualified to API 1104 instead.
Not a welding cert but the top credential for moving into inspection and QC, often with better pay and less physical wear. Requires a vision test (must read Jaeger J2 at 12 inches) plus qualifying experience that scales with your schooling: about 5 years with just a high school diploma/GED, 4 years with a trade/vocational welding certificate, 3 years with a relevant associate degree, or 1 year with a relevant bachelor's. You then must pass a three-part exam (fundamentals, hands-on practical inspection, and an open-book code exam), each part needing 72%.
Lets you operate larger trucks and tow your welding rig to remote job sites. Pipeline and field welders who own a rig and can drive it earn 'truck pay' on top of their wage.
Underwater welding requires becoming a certified commercial diver first (separate, expensive training, plus logged dive hours), then learning wet/dry welding. High pay, high danger, not an entry-level path. Most start as low-paid deck tenders before they ever weld underwater.
Licensing
There is no single nationwide 'welder's license,' and no U.S. equivalent of Canada's Red Seal. In most of the country, what matters is certification (passing weld tests to AWS, ASME, API, or an employer's WPS), not a government license. Where licensing does come up, it's usually tied to construction permits in specific cities or states, and is more about the contractor than the individual welder. Always check your state and city rules before assuming you're free to take code/structural work.
Licensing rules vary by state - check your state board.
Education
Minimum: High school diploma or GED. You need to be able to read a tape measure, do basic shop math (fractions, angles), and follow written procedures. That's the floor to get into a program or a helper job.
Helps: A welding certificate or diploma from a community college or trade school (typically 6-18 months) is the most common on-ramp and teaches you stick, MIG, flux-core, and TIG plus blueprint reading and metallurgy basics. An associate degree in welding technology helps if you want to move into inspection, supervision, or robotics/automation down the road (and counts toward the experience needed for the AWS Certified Welding Inspector exam). High school welding/ag/shop classes are a great free head start.
Skills you'll need
Technical
Physical
People & habits
Tools of the trade
The real deal
Pros
- Get in fast and cheap: under a year of training (or a paid apprenticeship) versus four years and big debt for a degree.
- Real, portable skill: pass a weld test anywhere and you can find work; good welders are in demand across the country.
- Strong earning ceiling: specialize in pipe, go union, chase shutdown/pipeline work, or own a rig and you can clear six figures.
- Hands-on and tangible: you build real things, no cubicle, and the work is rarely boring.
- Hard to automate at the high end: skilled field and code welding can't easily be offshored or done by robots.
- Clear advancement: welder to combo welder to inspector, supervisor, or your own shop.
Cons
- Hard on the body: burns, bad knees and shoulders, eye strain, and lung exposure to fumes add up over a career if you don't protect yourself.
- Tough conditions: heat, sparks, confined spaces, working overhead or at height, and outdoor weather on construction and pipeline jobs.
- Real danger: arc flash, fumes, electric shock, fire, and falls; underwater and offshore work is genuinely hazardous, with the worst injuries being fatal.
- Travel and instability in the best-paying work: pipeline and shutdown jobs mean weeks away from home and seasonal slow stretches with no guaranteed paycheck.
- Pay starts modest: entry wages can be under $20/hr until you're certified and proven, and the median (~$51k) is solidly middle, not high.
- You're only as good as your last test: certifications expire and have to be maintained (AWS CW every 6 months), and a rejected weld is on you to redo.
Where it can go
Specializations
Welds pipe (often with TIG root + stick fill) for refineries, power plants, and process facilities. The 6G certification and multi-process skill make this one of the best-paid, most in-demand specialties.
Welds the big cross-country oil and gas transmission lines, typically qualified to API 1104. Travels with the job, works long hours for high pay plus per diem and rig pay, but the work is seasonal and itinerant.
Welds the steel skeletons of buildings, bridges, and stadiums, often working at height. Strong on stick and flux-core in all positions, usually to AWS D1.1.
Builds and repairs boilers, pressure vessels, and tanks in power, refining, and heavy industry, including 'shutdown' and 'turnaround' work that pays big for intense bursts.
High-precision TIG work on stainless, aluminum, titanium, and exotic alloys for aerospace, medical, food, and pharma. Cleaner shop conditions, demands top hand skill.
Welds ship hulls, offshore rigs, and pipelines underwater. Requires commercial dive certification first. High pay, high danger, not entry-level; you start as a deck tender for a year or two before welding.
Reads prints and builds custom metal products from scratch in a shop, doing layout, fit-up, and welding. The bread-and-butter of manufacturing.
Off-the-torch paths: inspecting welds for quality (AWS CWI) or programming and tending automated/robotic welding cells. Less physical wear, often better long-term pay.
Start this week
- Try it before you commit: take a community college intro welding class, a high school/adult-ed shop course, or even a weekend workshop to see if you like the work and have the steady hands for it.
- Price out training near you: compare your local community college welding certificate (cheapest) against private trade schools, and ask each program which AWS certifications they prep you for.
- Search apprenticeship.gov for welding apprenticeships (occupation code 51-4121) and call your local Boilermakers, Ironworkers, and UA pipefitter halls to ask how to apply.
- Knock on doors: visit fabrication shops, manufacturers, and repair shops near you and ask about helper or apprentice openings, even unposted ones.
- Buy or borrow the basics and practice: an auto-darkening hood, gloves, and time on a machine to build muscle memory before you test.
- Set a target certification (start with an AWS Certified Welder test in a common process/position) and book it once your beads are consistent.
- Get your high school diploma or GED first if you don't have one, since it's the floor for programs and most jobs.
Job outlook
Steady, with a major retirement wave. Employment is projected to grow about 2% from 2024 to 2034 (slower than average), but that headline number is misleading. BLS projects roughly 45,600 job openings per year over the decade, almost all from replacing welders who retire or leave the field. The welding workforce is aging and not enough young people are coming in, so skilled, certified welders who are willing to travel stay in demand.
Per the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2% growth 2024-2034 sounds flat, but the ~45,600 annual openings tell the real story: this is a replacement-driven trade (about 457,300 welders were employed in 2024). Infrastructure spending, energy projects, shipbuilding, and reshored manufacturing all need welders, and the welder shortage is genuine in skilled specialties (pipe, TIG, code work). Generic, repetitive shop welding is more exposed to automation and offshoring than high-skill, high-position field welding, so the safest bet is to build code/pipe/TIG skill rather than stay a one-trick production welder.
Helpful links
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers - Official government source for pay, job outlook, and what the work involves. Start here for honest numbers.
- BLS Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics (welders, 51-4121) - Detailed wage data by state, metro area, and industry so you can see what welders actually earn where you live.
- Apprenticeship.gov (welder occupation listings) - U.S. Department of Labor's official finder for registered, paid welding apprenticeships near you.
- American Welding Society (AWS) certification - The main certifying body. Details on the Certified Welder and Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) programs, testing facilities, and requirements.
- AWS Certified Welder Program - Specifics on the entry-level performance credential: how the test works, accredited testing facilities, and how to maintain it.
- International Brotherhood of Boilermakers - Major welding union with paid apprenticeships in heavy industry, shipbuilding, and pressure-vessel work.
- Ironworkers International - Union and apprenticeship path for structural welders building bridges, buildings, and stadiums.
- United Association (UA) Pipefitters - Union apprenticeships for pipe welding, among the best-paid welding specialties.
- CareerOneStop (sponsored by U.S. DOL) - Find local welding training programs, financial aid, and job openings in your state.
Common questions
How long does it take to become a welder?
You can be job-ready in 6 to 18 months through a community college or trade school certificate, or even faster with a short stick/MIG certificate (3-7 months). A registered apprenticeship to full journeyman runs 3-5 years (pipefitter/pipe-welder programs are usually the longest, about 5 years) but pays you the whole time. Honestly, you can learn the basics in months; getting good enough to pass hard pipe tests takes a few years of practice.
Do I need to go to college?
No four-year degree needed. A high school diploma or GED plus a short welding certificate is the normal path, and many welders learn through a paid apprenticeship or on the job with no formal program at all. What matters most is passing weld tests, not a diploma.
How much do welders really make?
The national median is about $51,000/year ($24.50/hr) per BLS (May 2024), with most welders between roughly $38,000 and $76,000 in straight wages. But certified combo and pipe welders, especially union or pipeline hands working overtime with per diem, often clear $80,000-$135,000+, and specialized underwater/rig welders can go higher in their best years. Your pay tracks your skill, certifications, willingness to travel, and overtime, not just the job title.
Is welding bad for your health?
It can be if you're careless. The main risks are eye damage from arc flash, lung damage from fumes, burns, and long-term wear on knees, shoulders, and back. The good news is every one of those is manageable with proper PPE, ventilation, and good habits. Veteran welders who protected themselves stay healthy; the ones who didn't pay for it later.
What's the difference between MIG, TIG, and stick welding?
Stick (SMAW) is the rugged, cheap, go-anywhere process for thick steel and outdoor/structural work. MIG (GMAW) is fast and beginner-friendly, common in shops and fabrication. TIG (GTAW) is slow, precise, and the hardest to learn, used on stainless, aluminum, and pipe where the weld has to be flawless. Flux-core (FCAW) is like a heavier-duty MIG for thick metal and field work. Learning several makes you a 'combo welder' and gets you paid more.
What is a 6G certification and why does everyone mention it?
6G refers to welding a pipe that's fixed at a 45-degree angle, which forces you to weld in every position without rotating the pipe. It's the toughest common weld test, so passing it proves you can handle almost anything. A 6G pipe certification is one of the biggest pay bumps in the trade and opens the door to high-paying pipeline and refinery work.
Can I make six figures as a welder?
Yes, but not on day one and not in every job. The welders earning $100k+ are usually skilled pipe/combo welders, pipeline or shutdown hands working long hours with per diem, rig owners, underwater/offshore divers, or experienced union members with overtime. It takes certifications (especially 6G), willingness to travel, and years of proven skill to get there, and the biggest paychecks come with the longest hours and the most time away from home.
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