Welder Salary in the United States
The median active welding job in the US currently posts at $26/hr — about $54,080/yr at full-time hours. That's the live, employer-posted number across 1,957 active listings, not a survey number from two years ago. Use the state breakdown below to see where pay clusters highest right now.
25th percentile
$22/hr
Entry-level / first-year welders
Median
$26/hr
≈ $54,080/yr full-time
75th percentile
$31/hr
Cert-stamped / specialty welders
Based on 1,957 active welding jobs in the US with employer-posted wages, normalized to hourly rate.
Welding salary by state
Median hourly wage in each state with a meaningful sample size, ranked highest to lowest.
| State | Median hourly | ~Annual | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | $40/hr | $83,200 | 6 |
| Hawaii | $31/hr | $64,480 | 12 |
| Mississippi | $31/hr | $64,480 | 19 |
| Alaska | $30/hr | $62,400 | 8 |
| New Jersey | $30/hr | $62,400 | 31 |
| Washington | $30/hr | $62,400 | 74 |
| Maryland | $29/hr | $60,320 | 54 |
| Oregon | $29/hr | $60,320 | 45 |
| Wyoming | $29/hr | $60,320 | 7 |
| California | $28/hr | $58,240 | 90 |
| Connecticut | $28/hr | $58,240 | 24 |
| Louisiana | $28/hr | $58,240 | 34 |
| Montana | $28/hr | $58,240 | 16 |
| New York | $28/hr | $58,240 | 45 |
| North Dakota | $28/hr | $58,240 | 17 |
| Vermont | $28/hr | $58,240 | 9 |
| Virginia | $28/hr | $58,240 | 51 |
| Delaware | $27/hr | $56,160 | 9 |
| Iowa | $27/hr | $56,160 | 24 |
| Massachusetts | $27/hr | $56,160 | 35 |
| West Virginia | $27/hr | $56,160 | 16 |
| Arizona | $26/hr | $54,080 | 77 |
| Illinois | $26/hr | $54,080 | 60 |
| Maine | $26/hr | $54,080 | 11 |
| Minnesota | $26/hr | $54,080 | 35 |
| Nevada | $26/hr | $54,080 | 16 |
| New Hampshire | $26/hr | $54,080 | 12 |
| Texas | $26/hr | $54,080 | 245 |
| Wisconsin | $26/hr | $54,080 | 53 |
| Alabama | $25/hr | $52,000 | 32 |
| Colorado | $25/hr | $52,000 | 36 |
| Florida | $25/hr | $52,000 | 76 |
| Idaho | $25/hr | $52,000 | 23 |
| Indiana | $25/hr | $52,000 | 34 |
| Kansas | $25/hr | $52,000 | 27 |
| Kentucky | $25/hr | $52,000 | 36 |
| Nebraska | $25/hr | $52,000 | 22 |
| New Mexico | $25/hr | $52,000 | 13 |
| North Carolina | $25/hr | $52,000 | 34 |
| Ohio | $25/hr | $52,000 | 60 |
| Oklahoma | $25/hr | $52,000 | 50 |
| Pennsylvania | $25/hr | $52,000 | 48 |
| South Dakota | $25/hr | $52,000 | 30 |
| Michigan | $24/hr | $49,920 | 37 |
| Missouri | $24/hr | $49,920 | 55 |
| South Carolina | $24/hr | $49,920 | 35 |
| Utah | $24/hr | $49,920 | 26 |
| Rhode Island | $23/hr | $47,840 | 5 |
| Tennessee | $23/hr | $47,840 | 34 |
| Arkansas | $22/hr | $45,760 | 31 |
| Georgia | $21/hr | $43,680 | 41 |
How we calculate this
Numbers come straight from the wages employers post on their own job ads — not government surveys, not self-reported salaries. Every listing we ingest from Indeed, Adzuna, USAJobs, Jooble, and the company career pages we crawl gets parsed for a posted wage, normalized to hourly rate (so a $52,000/yr posting becomes $25/hr, a $1,000/wk gig becomes $25/hr), and then aggregated.
We exclude listings without an explicit wage, listings that look like garbage data (e.g. $1.50/hr or $400/hr), and any scope with fewer than 5 wage-tagged matches. The numbers update daily as new jobs come in and stale listings expire.