Welder

What the work actually is

O*NET: use hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components. Its task statements are the day — weld components in flat, vertical or overhead positions; examine workpieces for defects and measure against specifications; prepare material surfaces to be welded, removing scale, slag, rust and contaminants; determine required equipment and methods using knowledge of metallurgy and geometry; monitor fitting and welding processes to prevent overheating or material distortion.

⚠ Two of those are the ones people underestimate. Preparation decides the weld — most bad welds were bad before the arc was struck. And position is the difficulty: the same joint flat, vertical and overhead is three different skills, which is exactly why certification is written by position.

Projected need

O*NET, on federal projections: 457,300 welders, cutters, solderers and brazers employed (2024), growth “slower than average (1% to 2%)” — and ⚠ 45,600 openings a year. Median wages $53,750 (2025) ($25.84 an hour). On education, 54% high school diploma, 21% less than high school, 12% a post-secondary certificate.

⚠ The growth figure and the openings figure point in different directions, and the openings figure is the one that matters: this is a large, ageing workforce that replaces itself constantly. ⚠⚠ And the wage spread is enormous. The median is a shop welder; certified pipe welders, code welders on pressure work, and travelling rig welders earn multiples of it. What moves you up that spread is certifications and positions, not years served.

⚠⚠ A test-based trade — which changes how you should think about the certificate

What you are allowed to weld is decided by a test coupon. An employer, or a third party, watches you weld a joint in a given process, position, material and thickness; the coupon is then bent or X-rayed. Pass, and you are qualified for that range — typically under an AWS structural code or ASME Section IX for pressure work. ⚠ The qualification belongs to the procedure and the range, not to you as a person, and it lapses if you stop using it.

⚠ So the certificate is not the goal — arc time is. Choose a programme by how much time you will spend welding rather than watching, ask how many booths there are per student, and ask what tests its graduates pass and who administers them. An AWS Accredited Test Facility on site is a strong signal.

⚠⚠⚠ Florida renumbered welding in 2025, and both numbering families are live

This site's standing warning is that a course number does not identify a course. Welding gives the cleanest example yet, because the state is mid-transition between two families:

• The 2025 sequence — Welder Assistant 1 and 2, Welder SMAW 1 and 2, then Welder (PMT0070–0074). 30 institutions. Staged by level.
• The older family — Welder Helper, then one course per process: shielded metal arc, gas metal arc, flux-cored arc, gas tungsten arc, and pipe (PMT0011–0016). 19 institutions. Staged by process.

⚠ Sixteen colleges carry BOTH, fourteen only the new, three only the old. So the number on your transcript may not exist at the college you move to, while the skill plainly does. Register by the programme; and when it matters, show the weld test rather than the transcript.

Necessary skills

• Steady hands and repeatable technique. The trade rewards doing the same thing the same way a thousand times — travel speed, angle, arc length.
• Reading a drawing and a weld symbol. ⚠ The symbol tells you process, size, length and where the weld goes; misreading it wastes a day and sometimes a part.
• Enough metallurgy to stay out of trouble — preheat, distortion, heat-affected zones, and why a strong weld can still crack.
• Fit-up and fabrication. Cutting, grinding and getting the joint right before welding it is most of the work and most of the quality.
• Safety as a habit — fume extraction, eye protection, hot work, confined spaces. The hazards are routine, which is exactly why people get hurt by them.

Advice

• ⚠ Ask how much arc time you get, and how many students share a booth. It is the single most useful question on a tour, and the answers differ enormously.
• Get pipe. Plate work is where you start; pipe welding, and 6G position in particular, is where the money is, and the Advanced certificate exists for it — though only 16 Florida colleges carry it.
• Collect certifications deliberately. Know which process, position and thickness range each test qualifies you for, keep the paperwork, and keep them current: an unused qualification expires.
• Florida's demand is specific — shipyards and marine repair, aerospace and launch infrastructure, power and process plants, structural steel for construction, and the hurricane rebuild that follows every bad season.
• ⚠ Plan for the body. It is physical work in heat and in awkward positions, and the people who last either move into inspection, supervision or fabrication management, or they look after themselves early. Certified welding inspector is the usual next step, and it needs documented experience — so keep records from your first job.