The pay box above shows what Texas welder roles with posted pay on our board offer right now — Texas is one of our deepest-covered states for welding.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page traces to one of two places: the live pay box at the top of this article, computed in real time from active listings with posted pay on our job board, and the Tradesppl Hiring Index — our monthly report built from every posting published on the board, with medians, percentile ranges, and sample sizes shown. We never estimate or impute pay: if a number is here, an employer advertised it. The full rules are in the index methodology.
What the August data says
In our August 2026 Hiring Index, US welder postings that disclosed pay ran a median of $53,300/year, with a wide middle range of $45,500–$65,500 across 73 disclosing postings. That spread is the story: welding has the widest pay dispersion of the trades we track, because process and ticket matter more than title. Texas was the #2 hiring region in North America (204 postings), with roughly 26% of Texas postings disclosing pay (transparency report).
What moves you up the spread
- Process: production MIG sits at the base; TIG on stainless and alloy, and pipe welding (6G) price well above it.
- Certs: AWS structural tickets, and for pipe the 6G combos employers test on hire — welder postings on our board name specific tickets more than any other trade (certification demand).
- Sector: shop fabrication at the base; structural and plant work above; pipeline and turnaround work — Gulf Coast refineries, West Texas energy — at the top, where per-diem and overtime stack on the rate.
- Rig welding: owner-operators billing truck-and-machine day rates sit outside salary data entirely.
Check your own number
- Pay calculator — turn an hourly rate into take-home pay with overtime
- Welder jobs in Houston — current welder openings on the board
- Hiring Index — this month's postings, pay, and hiring regions across every trade