How Much Does a Welder Make? Median Pay by Percentile and State

How much does a welder make in the United States?

BLS publishes pay for this job under the official name "Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers" (SOC 51-4121). That grouping includes people who weld in a fabrication shop as well as those who cut, solder or braze metal. In May 2025, the occupation had 416,210 wage and salary jobs nationwide, and the median annual pay was $53,750, or $25.84 an hour ^[1].

"Median" means the middle value: half of the workers earned more and half earned less. It is a better guide than an average because a small number of very high earners can pull an average upward.

Percentile	Annual pay (May 2025)	What it means
10th	$39,240	10 percent earned this or less
25th	$46,790	A quarter earned this or less
Median (50th)	$53,750	Half earned this or less
75th	$63,010	Three quarters earned this or less
90th	$77,530	10 percent earned this or more

The spread is wide: the 90th percentile is almost twice the 10th. A welder at the bottom of the range and one near the top can be doing very different work, in different places, for different employers. Both are counted in the same BLS group.

Is welder pay above the average for all jobs?

Slightly. The median for all occupations in May 2025 was $50,980, so the median welder earned $2,770 more, about 5 percent ^[2].

That gap is modest. Welding is a skilled trade, but the top of the all-occupations range (a 90th percentile of $128,560) is well above the top of the welder range. If you are comparing trades, our pages on truck driver pay and firefighter pay use the same BLS source and the same method, so the numbers line up.

How does welder pay compare with other trades?

The same May 2025 OEWS data set lets us line welders up against a few nearby jobs on this site ^[5]:

Occupation	National median pay (May 2025)	Wage and salary jobs
Welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers	$53,750	416,210
Heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration mechanics and installers	$61,010	409,670
Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers	$58,640	2,062,040
Firefighters	$59,280	345,990
Construction laborers	$47,120	1,096,780

Welders sit in the middle of this group: above construction laborers and below HVAC technicians, truck drivers and firefighters. The jobs are not interchangeable, since each has its own training, licensing and working conditions. If you want the details, see the pages on HVAC technicians, construction laborers, truck drivers and firefighters. These are national figures for wage and salary workers only.

How much do welders make per hour?

BLS reports a national median hourly wage of $25.84 for this occupation. Multiplying that by 2,080 hours (a full-time year of 40 hours for 52 weeks) gives about $53,747, which is very close to the $53,750 annual median. That is a handy check: the annual and hourly figures describe the same middle worker.

Your real paycheck can differ from that calculation. Hours vary by shop and season, and OEWS does not publish how much of the pay comes from overtime. We do not estimate it here.

What does a welder do, and what is the job outlook?

ONET OnLine summarizes the work as using hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering or brazing equipment, and lists sample job titles such as MIG welder, TIG welder, welder fitter, solderer and assembly line brazer. Its task list includes welding components in flat, vertical or overhead positions, operating safety equipment, detecting faulty equipment or defective materials, and cleaning or degreasing parts with wire brushes or portable grinders. ONET puts the job in Job Zone 1-2 (very little to some preparation needed) and projects slower than average growth of 1% to 2% for 2025 to 2035, with about 40,300 projected job openings over that period ^[3]. Openings include people leaving the job or the workforce, so slower growth does not mean no hiring. O*NET also lists related occupations, including boilermakers, structural metal fabricators and fitters, and welding, soldering and brazing machine setters, operators and tenders.

Which states pay welders the most?

Pay differs a lot by state. Here are the five highest and five lowest state medians in the May 2025 data. BLS published a median for every state and the District of Columbia for this occupation.

Rank	State	Median annual pay
Highest	Alaska	$80,840
2	Hawaii	$79,000
3	Connecticut	$64,880
4	Wyoming	$63,820
5	Washington	$63,020
Lowest	Arkansas	$47,970
2nd lowest	Tennessee	$48,040
3rd lowest	Georgia	$48,430
4th lowest	Alabama	$48,490
5th lowest	West Virginia	$48,810

Alaska's median is $32,870 higher than Arkansas'. A higher state median does not automatically mean a better standard of living, because housing, fuel and food cost more in some of these places. For comparison, California's welder median is $58,060 and Texas' is $53,340. You can compare any state in our salary by state tool.

How should I read the numbers on this page?

Three points keep the figures in context.

First, the reference period. All pay figures here are BLS OEWS estimates for May 2025, the most recent data set we use, and we retrieved them on 2026-11-15. Pay in your local market today may be different, and job postings can list ranges that do not match a statistical median.

Second, the grouping. Because BLS combines welders with cutters, solderers and brazers, the median describes a broad set of production and repair jobs, not only people who hold a particular welding credential or work in one industry.

Third, the percentiles. If you divide each annual percentile by 2,080 hours, you get a rough hourly equivalent: about $18.87 at the 10th percentile, $22.50 at the 25th, $30.29 at the 75th and $37.27 at the 90th. These are our own arithmetic, not BLS hourly percentiles, so treat them as a guide only. Of the 51 state and district medians in the data, 28 are above the national median of $53,750 and 23 are at or below it, so the national figure sits near the middle of where states fall.

What do other big states pay?

Beyond the top and bottom five, here are median pay figures for several large or well-known welding states in the same data: California $58,060, New York $59,140, Louisiana $62,250, Pennsylvania $52,900, Texas $53,340, Florida $50,640 and Ohio $50,340. Seen together, they show that no single "big state" pattern holds: Louisiana sits well above the national median, while Texas, Florida and Ohio sit at or below it. Of the 51 state and district medians, 28 are above $53,750.

What affects how much a welder earns?

BLS OEWS gives one number per state and does not split pay by employer type, union status, shift or credential, so we cannot attach a dollar amount to those factors. What the sources do describe:

• Training and experience. O*NET OnLine describes this work as needing from a few days to a year of on-the-job training, and reports that most respondents said a high school diploma or equivalent is required, with some reporting a post-secondary certificate ^[3].
• Certification. O*NET OnLine's welder page does not describe any certification itself; it links to a "Find certifications nationwide" tool. Certifications exist, but we found no BLS figure that shows what a certification adds to pay, so we do not give one. Check the requirements and costs with the certifying organization and your employer before paying for any test.
• Apprenticeship. A registered apprenticeship combines paid work with training, and you can search for programs on the federal Apprenticeship.gov finder. We could not open Apprenticeship.gov pages from our research tools, so we do not quote its pay or length figures here. Apprentice wages are set by each program, so they are not the same as the OEWS figures above.
• Where you work. The state table above shows how much geography alone can matter.

BLS counts only wage and salary workers. Welders who own their business or work as independent contractors are not included in these figures, and what they earn depends on their rates, their expenses and how often they find work. We do not have a sourced typical figure for them.

How should I use this when comparing offers?

When you look at a pay offer, compare it with the state median and with the percentile that matches your experience. A starting welder with no experience is more likely to be offered pay near the lower percentiles than near the 90th, though BLS does not say who sits where. Ask the employer whether the rate is hourly or salaried, whether overtime is paid and how often, and whether training or certification tests are paid for. Those questions affect your actual yearly income more than the headline hourly rate alone, and the answers are not captured in any national table.

How do I get started as a welder?

Most people enter through a short training program, a registered apprenticeship or on-the-job training with an employer, then build skills and credentials over time. The steps, requirements and typical paths are in our guide to the welder career. For job-wide context, see our careers hub and the training page, and for how we handle pay data, read our editorial policy.

Training options are plentiful in some states. O*NET OnLine's California page, for example, lists 81 welding training programs, with graduates receiving certificates of under 12 weeks, under one year, one to two years, or an associate's degree ^[4]. The page does not give program costs, pass rates or job-placement rates, so ask any school for those in writing, and we do not recommend particular schools.