Occupation / job
Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers
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
Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers pays $53,750 against $50,020 across all occupations, which is $310 a month ahead. A modest premium, and modest premiums are usually attached to modest requirements — check what this one is attached to.
416,210 people do this work. An occupation this large has a published, well-known going rate — which means less scope to be underpaid and less scope to negotiate above it.
Metal and plastic work suits people who want a measurable craft — the tolerance is either held or it is not — and who like being judged on something objective.
No verified preparation time is on file for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$16,220 separates the bottom quarter at $46,790 from the top quarter at $63,010, a ratio of 1.3x. In a band that tight, moving up inside Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers pays less than moving out of it would.
At $46,790 — $22.49 an hour — the 25th percentile of this field sits essentially at the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Being in the bottom quarter of Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers still means being paid like the average American worker.
Avoid it if you would resent the shift pattern; much of this work runs nights because the machines do.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 416,210 figure counts people already working as Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
At 1.3x between $46,790 and $63,010, this is a narrow distribution. $53,750 is a reliable number to plan around, which is worth something — but so is knowing that outperforming the field will not be paid for.
Put in money rather than ratios: $46,790 at the 25th percentile, $53,750 at the midpoint, $63,010 at the 75th. $16,220 separates the quarter of Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
The 75th percentile is $63,010. Reaching it from the $53,750 midpoint is $9,260 a year; reaching it from the $46,790 that the bottom quarter of Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers earn is $16,220.
From $53,750 it is $6,960 down to the bottom quarter and $9,260 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers is $25.84 an hour. The quarters sit at $22.49 and $30.29, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $53,750 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $53,750 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