Hello potential welders! Thank you for joining us and allow us to guide you through ten reasons that we know make welding a GREAT career choice.
We won’t make you wait, here’s the 10 reasons…
- Growing demand = growing earnings
- Variety is the spice of life
- No lectures, no seminars, no professors
- Get started right away!
- An awesome local side hustle
- Travel far and wide!
- BYOB
- Help those around you
- Growing opportunities for women
- It will take care of you for life
However, you’ll definitely want to keep reading as we go into further and more exciting detail.
1. Growing demand = Growing earnings!
Welders are in high demand. In fact, there are more jobs than welders, with that shortage being very good news for welders who like a big pay packet and fair compensation. With the number of welders entering the industry growing at a slower rate than overall demand, opportunities are countless. If you choose to be a welder, you can be both wealthy and busy.
Of course, if your intention is to get rich quickly… you might want to think again. Starting salaries are pretty good, but it’s after you’ve been in the game for a few years that you can start to command six-figure salaries and lucrative international placements. What’s also good is that you can do welding for private customers in your free time to boost your income more, but we’ll explain this in further detail in point 5.
2. Variety is the spice of life
There’s an endless supply of diversity in this industry. Different jobs, locations, welds, projects, and more. You’ll become multi-skilled and multi-talented pretty quickly, especially if you are open to trying out all sorts of different projects. Here are some ideas:
- General welding – maintenance and manufacturing
- Pipeline welding – installation and repairs
- Underwater welding – offshore projects in the ocean
- Space welding – rockets and more!
- Naval welding – shipbuilding and repairs
- Military welding – equipment and structures
- Motorsports welding – vehicle engineers
3. No lectures, no seminars, no professors
Intelligence is too often measured by academic benchmarks, something that is unfair on the creativity and brain power required to be a top-level welder. Fortunately, if you want to advance your career as a welder, you don’t need to sit in seminars and lectures or observe professors, you just need drive, motivation, and willingness to improve. A steady hand helps too. Climbing in an industry with a talent shortage is easy if you’re willing to work hard and build connections.
This isn’t to say that education isn’t important. In fact, instructors and mentors play a vital role in helping new welders to come through qualified, confident, and competent. Fortunately for those who aren’t academically-minded, the learning process is more practical than theoretical. Some instructors may also take advantage of modern tools, like Soldamatic, to teach welding virtually
From deciding to become a welder to getting certified takes around 9 months, so forget that 4-year college degree. Within a couple of years, you can be a supervisor or manager, taking care of other junior welders and leading by example.
4. Get started right away
As we said, it’s just 9 months, but that’s to get certified. Once you start a welding course, it might be a matter of days before you find yourself in a workshop with a blowtorch in your hand. Those who are even more motivated might already be asking friends or family to show them the ropes, and watching YouTube guides to get the theory.
If you’re fortunate, your welding education will involve welding simulation, one of the industry’s most innovative methods of developing and educating new welders.
5. Awesome local side hustle
As we mentioned in a previous point, being a local welder is a good way to make cash on the side. You can work your day-to-day welding job, and then if you have the energy in the evenings and weekends, you can do some part-time welding to support your community. Alternatively, you can use your skills to make stuff in your home workshop! There are so many possibilities.
6. Travel far and wide!
Do you have the travel bug? You’re not alone. Thousands of welders have gone beyond their local area and country and taken their epic skills international. The Middle East has huge demand and huge salaries. Africa has incredible projects and interesting cultural experiences. Asia has fast-paced construction projects that need expert welders. The good thing is, welding is the same pretty much everywhere – it’s not like a lawyer who needs to learn a new legal system if they change countries.
Of course, if you have visions of being a backpacker, living in hostels, partying, and moving city every 3 days, you might be pushing it a bit. Overseas opportunities will want you to stay awhile, maybe half a year or more. They might offer accommodation, language learning opportunities, and enjoyable cultural excursions. It’s a great way to open your mind and save a lot of money whilst doing things you wouldn’t do at home. Many welders find this enjoyable and addictive and never come back!
7. BYOB: Bring your own… no, BE your own BOSS!
It’s easy to be an independent welder if you’re prepared to do the sales and marketing required to get customers. Then, once you have contracted more work than you can handle, you find another welder to help you out, then another, and another. That’s how you grow a full-time welding business yourself!
Eventually, you can just manage your welders and won’t need to do any welding yourself. That’s for the most entrepreneurial of you reading this!
Of course, all of the entrepreneurial skills are redundant if you aren’t a top quality welder in the first place. For this reason, we encourage you to do as much training as possible and pursue some kind of welding specialisation so that you can create a business with a tailored demand. This will make you and your business valuable to both independent jobs and companies with welding needs.
8. Help those around you
It doesn’t always have to be about money, right? The altruist within you might want to be a welder to help your family, your friends, your community, local business, local volunteer organisations, and more. You might have friends working on passion projects that you want to help. You might have a brother/sister building a house who wants to keep costs low.
Don’t be afraid to help those around you, because good karma can’t be bought.
9. Growing opportunities for women
Women currently account for just 4.5% of welders. In an industry with a big skills gap and talent shortage, that means there is a huge need for women to enter this industry and be better represented. There are recruitment, training, and educational opportunities in abundance.
What’s more, it’s been said that women make better welders, as they follow the pattern, rather than the flame. This makes them better specialists for the high-end jobs, giving them a clear advantage in a male-dominated industry.
10. It will take care of you for life
Looking for longevity? Welding is for you. The average millennial will change careers 5 times, but the average welder never stops. With this career opening up such a diversity of opportunities, skills, and locations, there’s no reason to let it get stagnant.
Demand isn’t likely to drop, there are no barriers to entry, and the earnings will look after you forever.
What’s stopping you from getting started as a welder today?
