Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters

$51,330 against a $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — $1,310 apart. Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters pays what the average job pays, so the decision has to be made on the work, the entry cost and the spread rather than on the wage.

52,360 people are employed as Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters. At that scale every large metro has a real market, and the difference between a good year and a bad one is usually which employer you are at rather than whether anyone is hiring.

Assembly and fabrication suit people who are consistent over long runs and who value predictable hours, a fixed site and a defined task set.

How long it takes to become one of the 52,360 people doing this is not something we have a source for. BLS counts and pays them; it does not record how they got there, and we would rather say so than guess.

The quarters sit at $45,610 and $61,250, $1,303 a month apart at a ratio of 1.3x. Narrow enough that what you can expect is close to what everyone else gets.

At $45,610, or $21.92 an hour, the bottom quarter of this work lands within $4,410 of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — an unusually solid floor.

Avoid it if you need variety in the task, or would be unable to move should the plant close.

There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 52,360 people employed as Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters; 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.

At 1.3x between $45,610 and $61,250, this is a narrow distribution. $51,330 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.

In cash terms the middle half of Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters runs $45,610 to $61,250 — $15,640 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $51,330.

Getting to $61,250, the 75th percentile, is worth $9,920 a year more than the $51,330 midpoint and $15,640 more than the $45,610 a quarter of Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters settle for.

It is $5,720 from $51,330 down to $45,610 but $9,920 up to $61,250. 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: $21.92 at the bottom quarter, $24.67 at the midpoint, $29.44 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.