Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters worker at that point in the distribution, so $59,810 at the 75th percentile means three quarters of the occupation earns less. Figures BLS cannot publish appear as n/p, and its top code prints as $239,200+.

Employment and concentration

May 2024 employment stood at 53,380, or 0.03% of the U.S. total. Texas leads the state table with 6,220 jobs; the top three states sum to 22.1% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Alabama posts a location quotient of 2.97, so a worker there is far more likely to meet a colleague in this field than the national pattern suggests.

One in ten workers in this field earns $37,370 or less, and one in ten earns $70,510 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 1.9 to 1 and the annual gap is $33,140. The mean ($52,740) versus median ($49,900) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

Alaska posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $64,220, and Texas the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters stands number 378 by employment and number 522 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Production Occupations, the group median wage is $46,020 across 105 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 8% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.6% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 24 of the 46 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $49,900, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX is the largest metro employer with 2,450 jobs, 4.6% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $49,700 a year, against $77,360 in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $4,158 a month before tax, $1,919 biweekly, $960 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($44,290) to the 75th ($59,810) is worth $15,520 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $54,890 would sit between the median ($49,900) and the 75th percentile ($59,810), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $44,290, is $5,610 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Production Occupations

Pay for the neighboring roles in the same BLS major group: Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians, Fiberglass Laminators and Fabricators, Chemical Plant and System Operators, Tailors, Dressmakers, and Custom Sewers, Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders, Plant and System Operators, All Other. The full directory is on the Careers hub.