When you hear the word welder your mind will be filled with images of laborers wearing eye-protectors, working amidst the blazing sparks and heat, laboring hard to fabricate and join metal parts. These conventional conceptions about a welder are held by everyone. But the truth is that there are incredible career paths in the welding field that could provide you with a lifestyle and a job that you always dreamt about.
If you are thinking of joining the industry but unsure about the career options available, you are at the right place. Continue reading till the end to get a gist of all the possible and satisfying career paths this industry has to offer to people who are passionate, hard-working and have the necessary skills.
Let’s get started!
Welding Career Paths You Need To Know
Welding is not an industry that wants you to stay restricted to connecting metal parts together. There are numerous jobs in welding that the field serves you with. All it needs is a little research into discovering what suits you the best. Let us get to know the best career paths welding can provide you with-
Aerospace Welding
The average salary of an aerospace welder can be as high as $22 to $36 in an hour. Aerospace welders manufacture parts of airplanes, spacecrafts and space shuttles. This sounds interesting already! This is probably the bestwelding that needs command over laboring with metals such as steel,aluminium, carbon and stainless steel. According to reports the welding industry employment is expected to rise by 3-4% by 2029.
This type of welding requires experts to work with automated as well as manual welding instruments. According to Indeed.com, a welder in NASA spaceX makes $106,333 on a yearly basis !! This is definitely an ultimate welding career that offers you the chance to satiate your thirst for those aircrafts and space shuttles !!
•Inventor
Scroll your mobile screens and use the internet to amaze yourself with the incredible amount of inventions that were made conceivable through welding and expert welders! Your skills in welding can help you in bringing your genius ideas to life. An extraordinary idea and well nourished skills are the excellent ingredients for an invention. You can make your own inventions using your skills and even build a grand business!!
•Boiler Maker Welding
Boilermaker welders use their skills to manufacture ,repair and even modify boilers, vats, tanks, furnaces and others by bringing into use oxy-acetylene gas torches. They combine shielded metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding perfectly. According to payscale.com, a boilermaker’s average salary is $29-$31/hour! This can be an excellent career option for people who love to toil in active-construction sites, fields and in emergency situations.
•Structural Welding
Structural welders are responsible for creating metal frames for buildings and bridges. They are also accountable to cut and repair beams, girders and columns. They work for the construction and welding companies, manufacturers, mining companies, ship builders, oil and gas companies, as well as aerospace industries. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has stated that structural welders make an average of $56,000 a year or $30 an hour, which makes it a suitable welding career.
•Pipeline Welding
Pipeline Welders are accountable to repair and join metallic pipe components as part of the construction of buildings, structures, and stand-alone pipelines. They utilize a variety of welding procedures, methods and equipment, in a variety of industrial, commercial, and construction settings. Because pipes are periodically set up in fixed stances and positioned in ways that make the job difficult, pipeline welders are necessitated to be versatile and well-trained. They are some of the most skilled and strived after welders.
A pipeline welder’s entry level salary is about $52,000 per year. All they need is sharp mechanical and mathematical aptitude, ability to adapt to changes quickly, ability to labor independently and also as a part of a team, ability to operate efficiently in all types of settings and weather, a knowledge of blueprints, welding symbols, field welding techniques and piping components.
Conclusion
Having described such satisfying and much sought after career options in the field of welding, one can be sure of a high-earning, flexible, and skill enhancing path in life. A welder can pursue a unique and satisfying journey with his career and that too without a college degree or advanced qualifications. Having passion works wonders. This industry provides you with jobs that are in high demand. Underestimating the worth of these would be the worst thing to commit.
Gain all that necessary passion and be sure of striving hard once the industry gets you close to what you always wanted.
Have you been imagining a welding career, but unsure of whether it’s right for you or not, or unsure of what advantage you can avail in this field? You are definitely at the right place. A Welding career gives you more than just a job. The benefits this field provides needs to be read about, to gain insight as to whether it is the right choice for you or not.
A career in welding can direct you to a variety of industries and habitats. Diversity at work keeps one’s work life interesting and hands-on training allows one to learn all the necessary skills via experience. Combining these two welding as a career proves to be fun, unique and non-repetitive.
10 Reasons Welding is a Great Career Choice
1. It Is Easy To Get Into
Serving as a welder needs no formal schooling, and sometimes, not even prior experience. The further you know, the better. It is a tremendous trade because you can begin from the bottom in a workshop and learn it all while pursuing the career.
2. Huge Demand For Welders
The world requires welding technicians, and chief places that are vacant need more of them. This makes welding a considerable trade, as you will never be out of work opportunities to earn if you have decent work ethics.
If World War III takes place, while the majority of other people will lose their jobs and could be compelled to learn a new kind of work that favours their military, all the welders can keep going welding, just in various fields. That is exactly what happened in World War II.
3. It Is Easy To Climb The Ladder
Because there is such a need for welders, it is easy to improve in the welding and fabrication industry. With huge demand comes additional work, and with extra work comes more chances, if you are career-driven to get a greater position.
4. It Pays Reasonably Well
Welding is no get-rich-quick technique, but if you stick at it for even a small-time, you can attain some good coins. New welders earn forty grand dollars a year on average, and the boost continues annually, up to between $ fifty grand to five million dollars with experience in a good field.
Although welding itself pays pretty well, the vacancy for so many different welding.
5. You Can Travel The World As A Welder
If you wish to experience life in distinct cultures while still receiving an income, welding is an excellent trade for you. Because welding processes are identical around the nation and there is a need for skilled welders in maximum countries, it is easy to get jobs abroad.
6. It’s Easy To Pick Up Side Work If You Need Extra Income
If you would prefer to live locally and expect to save up some excess money, welding is a great trade for earning some money on the side. From operating a part-time welding service to designing your products to agreement work on your holidays, there are a lot of options to gain as much as your full-time job and more, only by some side work.
7. It’s Easy To Start Your Own Business
In the beginning, part-time work on the side is manageable, rolling that into a full-time welding job is much easier than launching other types of businesses. There is the potential to set up an expanding company that delivers you with a huge salary while offering other welders working chances. Welding is an outstanding option if you are entrepreneurial.
8. It’s Enjoyable To Work
Aside from the reality that there are various incredible opportunities with a welding career, it is simply enjoyable. We respect welding, and we know most other welders appreciate it too.
The challenge of fusing a weld to create a powerful and beautiful-looking category is fulfilling. The achievement never seems to get old in converting a few bits of metal into a remarkable project that looks incredible and is useful for its specific purpose.
9. You Learn Valuable Skills
The work within a workshop is very satisfying, and there is a lot of skill you will learn on the duty that helps in everyday life.
Being able to do your welding at home on personal projects or help out mates is great. The mechanical element of jobs in welding will moreover teach you skills helpful for working on cars, working on your house, and supporting your fishing or other things.
Whatever else you spend your time performing, the useful skills acquired in a workshop make life outside the workshop simpler and more fun.
10. There’s Plenty Of Diversity Within The Industry
The welding jobs and businesses are so widespread today. There are many metals you can find out to weld, and the types of programs seem to be endless. Some workshops may concentrate on a limited range of fabricating, while others do numerous different kinds. Overall, the spectrum throughout the welding business is enormous. You only have to work for a limited number of companies over a lifetime to endure an amazing amount of multiplicity.
More than half of all American products manufactured need welding. The term “welding” applies to numerous different processes and tools used to join metals. With a staggering thirty different methods of welding as a whole, it is easy to get confused.
A Brief History
Right up to the end of the 19th century, forge welding was the only method used until both arc welding and oxy-fuel welding came to use. Global warfare in the early 20th century was largely liable for the development of new welding procedures that were both cost-effective and dependable.
Fundamental and manual processes like shielded metal arc welding sprang up and remain popular today. From here, gas metal arc welding and flux-cored arc welding were improved. Growths in welding continued throughout the latter part of the 20th century with laser welding and robot welding, which are used in industrial settings.
We will now focus on these industrial locations with a brief snapshot of 6 industries that use welding in its many different forms. As you’ll soon see, it is MIG welding that covers the pole position across all industries.
Various Industries Employing Welders
Automotive Industry
Heretofore MIG welding delivers a super-strong bond even between thinner metals, it is ideal for joining layers of aluminium on the manufacturing line. Laser MIG welding is gaining ground as car manufacturers admire the affordable nature of this procedure, which also gives superior penetration depth.
The average car needs thousands of welds, so unless things change radically, welding will stay a staple in the automotive business.
Railroads
Welding work is a major part of the railroad industry. When steel rails were introduced more than a century ago, welding was important for joining these rails. Shot welding was a creative form of spot welding formulated in 1932 as a way of incorporating this steel effectively.
The Pioneer Zephyr, America’s first diesel aerodynamic train, was made by the Budd Company, the company behind shot welding. This metal behemoth was one of the first representations of spot welding being used for tremendous effect.
Aerospace
Unsurprisingly, since welding is one of the greatest methods of joining metal, the aerospace organisation has a lot of use for it. Aerospace engineers employed welding to make the very initial commercial aircraft.
Gas welding was previously the standard production method – it is still used now for aircraft restorations – but it has been superseded by electrical arc welding. This alternate method works well for ultimate types of metal. TIG welding, originally developed by the aerospace industry for functioning with magnesium, became popular in the 1940s.
Today, engineers operate with MIG welding for manufacturing aircraft, on the other hand, plasma arc welding and electric resistance welding are generally used for fusing sheeting and precision work.
Manufacturing
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that well 0.3 million welding technicians are employed in manufacturing alone. There are various types of manufacturing factories that hire welders; still, the most common employers are architectural and structural metals producing, mining and agricultural manufacturing and motor vehicle manufacturing. Aerospace businesses and shipbuilding firms are also main welding employers. Welders that operate in manufacturing plants are mainly responsible for welding metal parts of several sizes and types to either produce a new product or fix an old one.
Major production of everything from computer components to machinery coils is a different area in which MIG welding is basic. Its rate and cost-effectiveness mean it is the ideal solution for high-output manufacturing.
MIG welding, as we have already seen, is also incredibly versatile. Before the manufacturing sector uses such a widespread of metals, this flexibility means MIG welding is exceptionally important to the industry. Fully sixty % of all welding jobs are production-based.
From furniture to farming tools, computer components to mining machinery, just about anything you can think of that is put together on a manufacturing line will desire to weld somewhere during the procedure.
Construction And Infrastructure
MIG welding was invented to fuse non-ferrous metals like aluminium. In the construction business, though, workers especially use steel, and MIG welding is also majorly employed for steelwork.
With over fifty % of the steel produced across the world being used in the construction of commercial and residential buildings and houses, there is a tremendous demand for welding on site. Further, jobs in welding are a great way to repair destroyed machines or broken equipment.
Flux-cored welding is also mostly used in the construction business, and shielded-metal arc welding is a filthy but affordable option. Plasma arc welding works adequately for detailed precision projects.
Shipping
From cruise liners and big tankers to cargo watercraft and aircraft carriers, welding underpins the building of most ships. Although engineers can also use rivets, welding is a big deal quicker.
For reasons of velocity and economy, welding has been the gold standard in the shipping business since World War II. Much like in the construction business, welding is also a regular process for rebuilding ships of all shapes and sizes.
