If you are looking for a career where you can work locally or travel, where you can learn a skill that is useful, where you can make a significant amount of money, and continue to advance your skills over time, a career in welding may be for you.
A career in welding is about more than physical labor. In order to have a successful career in welding, you need to be great at math and calculating dimensions that need to be welded. You need to be skilled at studying and understanding blueprints and sketches, and taking what you see in a two-dimensional layout and turning it into a three-dimensional reality. You have to be skilled at inspecting items and determining how a weld will help support the structure. You have to understand how buildings and machinery work.
It takes a lot of skill to be a welder, as well as customized welding programs, and being a skilled welder can open up a variety of career paths to you.
Military Support
There is lots of need for welders in the military. You can work as a sub-contractor for the military. You may do welding work repairing and building military equipment and taking care of military structures. This could be a location-based job at a base or a traveling job where you go to wherever the military needs welding support.
Ship Building
Modern cargo ships are still made out of metal and require the work of skilled welders in order to construct and build them. All sorts of ships are built out of metal, so you can work on building anything from an aircraft carrier to a cargo ship to a research vessel. This is a great career path for an individual who is interested in boats.
On-Board Ship Maintenance
There are plenty of ships that spend all their time out on the water. Cruise lines as well as shipping lines hire welders to live on the ship so that way they have someone on-board to handle all their welding needs when at sea. You'll need extensive knowledge not just of how to weld, but of how to take care of the ship and the systems on a ship, such as the plumbing and heating system, for this type of career.
Oil Industry
There are lots of career paths within the oil industry for welders. Whenever a new pipeline is being built, welders are needed to help with the construction of the pipeline. Welders may also be stations on drilling platforms on the ocean to take care of welding needs and maintenance as they arise.
Motor Sports Racing
If you love cars and have a deep passion and knowledge of vehicles, you can take your welding skills and combine them with your knowledge of cars to work on a racing team. Motorsports racing that relies on custom racing equipment always needs good welders in their pit-crew and on-staff to construct and fix the custom equipment they need. You could assist with the building of the cars or with the care of cars during track days.
The careers listed above are just the top of the barrel when it comes to potential welding jobs. You could perform underwater welding, industrial support, or work for a construction company. There are lots of different ways you can combine your welding skills with your other passions to craft a career path that is both fulfilling and pays well.
When a close family member found themselves in jail at 18 years old, they lost all possibility of furthering their education to build job skills. Once they were finally released, we decided to help them find some opportunities through the local trade schools. Navigating the trade school application process was complicated, so I decided that I would create this site to help others through. You'll find information on these pages about the benefits of trade schools, how to apply and enroll, and more. I hope that these pages help to empower you or a loved one to pursue that education that they need for a stronger career.