Salaries / Welder
Skilled Trades · SOC 51-4121
Welder salary
Welders, cutters, and brazers join metal parts for construction, manufacturing, and repair. Certifications open higher-paid work.
Arizona · 2025
Median annual (AZ)
$55,600
Median hourly (AZ)
$26.73
Typical range (AZ)
$39,970 to $81,280
Arizona source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS 2025.
National
Median annual
$53,750
Median hourly
$25.84
Typical range
$39,240 to $77,530
National source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS 2025. Figures are gross pay and vary by location, employer, and experience.
The pay range, visually.
Low end (about the 10th percentile), median, and high end (about the 90th percentile).
By state, at a glance
These at-a-glance figures are estimates derived from the national median and a state wage index, shown to give a rough sense of local differences. Pick any state (here or in the selector above) to look up its real figures.
Your skills are a business
Ideas we have for people in skilled trades.
The same experience that earns a paycheck as a welder can start a business. Here are real ideas from our marketplace that fit this field.
Start an Industrial Pipe and Skid Fabrication Shop
Fabricate pipe spools, process skids, and steel weldments to engineered drawings for power, water, and process industry contractors, selling certified shop welding that cuts their expensive field labor.
Start a Wrestling Ring and Combat Sports Cage Manufacturing Business
Fabricate and sell professional wrestling rings, boxing rings, and MMA cages from a metal shop, serving a customer base almost nobody thinks about: hundreds of independent promotions, wrestling schools, gyms, and event companies that all need the same steel.
Start a Mobile Welding Business
Bring the welder to the work: farm equipment, gates and railings, trailers, and emergency repairs, a skilled trade where certifications are earned by test, not by resume.
Start an Industrial NDT and Weld Inspection Service
Inspect welds, pressure vessels, piping, and structural steel without cutting them open, selling certified nondestructive testing days to power plants, fabrication shops, and the contractors whose work cannot ship without an inspection report.
You could hire welders, not just be one.
We have a staffing calculator to price the work and a full course on how to start a staffing agency, so you can turn a field you already know into a business that puts other people to work.