Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Percentiles answer the question a single average cannot: where would a given Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders offer sit among all 36,290 workers doing this job? The survey top-codes at $239,200+ and withholds unreliable cells, shown as n/p in the table.

Employment and concentration

May 2024 employment stood at 36,290, or 0.02% of the U.S. total. Michigan leads the state table with 4,360 jobs; the top three states sum to 27.1% of the occupation. The concentration measure tells the more interesting story: Kentucky posts a location quotient of 5.11, 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 $35,780 or less, and one in ten earns $66,190 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 1.8 to 1 and the annual gap is $30,410. The mean ($49,270) versus median ($47,060) comparison shows a right-skewed ladder where senior and specialist roles lift the average in this occupation.

Pay by state

Washington posts the highest median annual wage in the state table at $78,460, and Michigan the largest headcount. The full table, sorted by employment:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders stands number 448 by employment and number 594 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 2% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.4% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 24 of the 44 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $47,060, 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

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI is the largest metro employer with 1,800 jobs, 5.0% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 119 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Grand Rapids-Wyoming-Kentwood, MI posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $42,220 a year, against $54,850 in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $3,922 a month before tax, $1,810 biweekly, $905 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($39,480) to the 75th ($55,870) is worth $16,390 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 $51,766 would sit between the median ($47,060) and the 75th percentile ($55,870), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $39,480, is $7,580 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: Production Workers, All Other, Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical Assemblers, Except Coil Winders, Tapers, and Finishers, Bakers, Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers, Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Operators, Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic. The full directory is on the Careers hub.