Occupation / job
Boilermakers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
A midpoint of $76,410 against $50,020 means Boilermakers pays $2,199 a month more than the typical American job. At that distance the entry requirement is the real subject, because it is what the premium is buying.
10,190 people work as Boilermakers. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
The building trades suit people who want to be paid to learn a craft rather than pay to learn a subject, and who can plan around work that stops when the project or the weather does.
We carry no verified training length for Boilermakers — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
The middle half runs $64,760 to $95,430 — $2,555 a month between the quarters, a 1.5x ratio. Spreads this narrow are usually set by a grade or a scale, so the negotiation you are imagining probably is not available.
The bottom quarter of Boilermakers earns $64,760 or more — $14,740 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Three quarters of the field is well paid and the last quarter is still paid better than most of the country.
Avoid it if a gap between projects would leave you without income you could not cover.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 10,190 people employed as Boilermakers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
Top quarter to bottom quarter is 1.5x. In a band that narrow, $76,410 is a genuinely representative number for Boilermakers and the main variable left is where you live.
In cash terms the middle half of Boilermakers runs $64,760 to $95,430 — $30,670 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $76,410.
The 75th percentile is $95,430. Reaching it from the $76,410 midpoint is $19,020 a year; reaching it from the $64,760 that the bottom quarter of Boilermakers earn is $30,670.
It is $11,650 from $76,410 down to $64,760 but $19,020 up to $95,430. When a range leans this far upward, the interesting question is what puts someone in the top half, because the money is disproportionately there.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $31.13 at the bottom quarter, $36.73 at the midpoint, $45.87 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $76,410 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $76,410 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else