good profession?

Date 08-19-2008 16:45

Tulsa Welding school is pretty good if that is the one you are looking at. The local community college is sometimes a pretty good value too for a lot less money. Tulsa Welding school would probably have more concentrated training. My employer hires from both Tulsa Welding School and the local community college. The grads do about the same and get about the same pay. Tulsa might be better if you want to get started in pipe welding though. Pipe welding is the highest pay grade, and if you contract out with your own truck you can make over $100k. $40-$50k is not unusual for a welder. Some jobs might pay less to start, but with a few months experience, you could increase your pay.

By Tommyjoking (****)

Date 08-21-2008 15:22 Edited 08-21-2008 15:31

OBEWAN I beg to differ with your evaluation of pay and welding. QUOTE: "$40-$50k is not unusual for a welder." Yes your 100% correct on that if your talking an well EXPERIENCED welder....a highly or well experienced hand can draw that kind of pay in most parts of the country, in fab shops, factories or specialty work like aerospace, or field work without too much fuss, pipe welding well ...can you get in and how hard you want to work...then there is plenty of opportunity for $$$? Where I am located: A guy straight out of school here might get $15 an hour if he is lucky, most fab shops are paying $12 and less for slave labor...far cry from a 40k avg. If you are willing to live anywhere and do anything with your weld diploma and certs ....if your savvy I think you could get $45 k offers reliably. After you got years of experience under your belt I truly believe you can make as much as you really want to. BUt like any new restaurant its all about location, location location. Just a side note: 95% of all aerospace offers I see in the continental US are averaging $22 an hour( for experienced hands)....thats working on multi million dollar satellites and or aircraft folks. Thats pretty damn sad considering the talent necessary to do that kind of work well. My job don't look so bad in that light considering my cost of living is WAY lower then most of the country. But you know what I can run a 5p or a lo-hi and hang with the crowd so........

Welding is not a bad career if you like to work with your hands and don't intend to push a pencil. Thing is...if you really like doing it you will end up successful at it no matter what. Thats with any career choice, if you like doing it..well then somebody will be giving you money to do something you want to do anyway. So you will probably do it a lot...right? I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, I figured out that I do not like running a calculator and pushing a pencil so .....I am a welder most of my life and I LOVE IT. Its kept my family clothed and fed, bought my house and my toys and I do not dread getting in the car and driving to work. I enjoy what I do for a living therefore I am successful at doing it! Welding is an arcane art and I enjoy the heck out of being a "wizard"!

Good luck man
Tommy

By OBEWAN

Date 08-21-2008 15:36 Edited 02-22-2014 20:48

I tend to agree with you. I was speaking mostly of experienced people when I said $40-50k. We pay starting aerospace welders $15-$17 and hour + overtime + bonus, so they hit that range.

By Metarinka (****)

Date 08-21-2008 22:00

tommy and obewan both pretty much summed it up
I'm just finishing up my degree in welding engineering, I love welding so much I couldn't just stop with an AA and certs.
the level of pay of course differs with experience, field, location etc. A recruiter just came through and picked up a couple of AA and 1 year kids to do mig welding they started at $26/hr! which seems very nice for starting pay with only 2 years of college. Some places are just that desperate a classmate just graduated and got relocation and housing in florida working for a shipyard startin gat $20/hr doesn't sound that bad at all to me. Conversely I started at 8.5 and worked my way up to 12.50 doing production mig and tig. Production shops tend to pay less since although it's not neccisarily lower skill they are making a product and are trying to reduce their overhead. Field work, service, boiler makers etc are where the money is at and with experience as mentioned you can make as much as you want.

I picked the engineering route so as much as I love welding I'm going to be a pencil pusher (actually my secretary will do that =) ...

By medicinehawk01 (**)

Date 08-22-2008 23:31

I agree that IF you like what you are doing, you'll be good at it, and therefore you'll eventually be paid well for it. I also did a tour at as an aerospace subcontractor, this was 16 or 17 years ago and the work was great.......the pay sucked. It was alot less than that 20-22 per hour range. That wage right now is not enough (22) today. I agree that top quality work is expected, infact demanded as it should be. I would not want to fly a jet or plane if it was any other way. The job was easy. We had a machine shop to make up any special tooling that was need to weld any part and most of the work was done on a spin table. You get good quick or you get run off. I wish I was still there, but it wasn't to be. I had to go because the place got bought by new owners who shook the place up and rather than play politics to keep my job over someone else, I just went back to pipe welding. Still at it and luving it.
Regarding money "in the field"........IF you can pass a 6G pipe test on carbon & stainless pipe, you will earn 40-50 grand your first year. It really depends on who is hiring as to whether they will take a chance on someone without experience, but the right training may be enough. The contractor I work for will only have their most experienced hands doing x-ray work because it cost less in the long run to have minimal rejects than to take a chance on someone who is green. Still, there is plenty of pipe to be welded where high quality is not so much of a concern so a newbie welder can get some good welding time under the hood and there he/she can get the experience that is needed to stay employed. They will still need to pass a 6G x-ray to get hired, but probably won't have that pressure once they get hired.
Be well,

Hawk

By OBEWAN

Date 08-22-2008 12:26 Edited 08-22-2008 12:28

If you want to know about many job openings and pay scales, the America's Job Bank used to be an excellent site. It is defunct, but the old weblink will take you to the state employment offices for all 50 states I think. I think the advertised pay tends to be lower at state employment offices though. Cheap companies try to use cheap or free recruiting help. Generous companies hire recruiting firms. At least, that is how it is for engineering. I doubled my welding engineering pay by using a good recruiter at Management Recruiters. It is like selling a house. Sometimes it pays to have a good realtor. The old weblink is www.ajb.dni.us http://www.jobbankinfo.org/ will also work. I liked the old search better because it was possible to search the entire country in one felll swoop. Now, it requires going to each state individually. Oh well, that is our government at work I suppose.

By Sourdough (****)

Date 08-22-2008 14:59

happygo..........

I am a highschool drop out and make well over 100k in a bad year. The key to my success is diversity. If you can do quite a few different things and do them well, then there is really no job that you would ever have to turn down unless you were just too busy.

When the oil patch is slow, I go up valley and build ornamental handrails and such. When the pipelines are going in you will find me on the right of way sparcin and arcin.

When there is a bridge being built, there I am running lh till the cows come home.

However: I knew when I was just a lad that I wanted to be a steel man. I got my first structural cert when I was 14 years old, my first pipe when I was 16. If you are passionate about this career, than the money will just naturally come right along with it.