How to get certified, land your first welding job, and what welders really earn — including TIG, pipeline and underwater specialist pay.
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Welders help build the world. In car racing, construction, and manufacturing, welders employ their skills to fuse metals to proper strength and specifications. If you are interested in learning techniques for becoming a welder, there are a few ways of building the skills needed for this job. Learning to Weld Understand job demands Physical and
Read guideA welding job is won at the weld test, not on paper. A shop gives you a coupon, a position and a process, and then bends or x-rays what you produce. The American Welding Society's own Certified Welder programme works the same way: it is a performance test with no written exam, and AWS state plainly that there are no educational prerequisites and no minimum experience requirement.
Read guideThe Bureau of Labor Statistics has no occupation called TIG welder. TIG is a process, and BLS counts everyone who uses it inside one occupation - welders, cutters, solderers and brazers - which had a median wage of $48,940 in May 2023. What moves a welder's pay is not which process they run. It is which industry they run it in.
Read guideThe US Bureau of Labor Statistics has no occupation called underwater welder. The nearest is commercial divers, and in May 2023 there were 2,790 of them in the whole country, earning a median of $61,300 a year. The $300,000 figure that circulates is a day rate for offshore saturation divers, not an annual salary.
Read guideTo become an underwater welder you become a commercial diver first and a welder second. The route is a welding ticket on land, then commercial diving school - 625 documented hours of instruction for an entry-level ADCI certification - then years of field days before you dive as a diver at all, and only then a welding qualification tested in the water rather than in a booth.
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