Welder Salary in Indiana 2026,
$49,730 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Indiana figure is $49,730 a year, or $23.91 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025 — 7.5% below the national median of $53,750 — across a band from $38,410 at the 10th percentile to $74,880 at the 90th. The upper half is pipe, pressure vessel and specialty code work rather than production welding, which is where most of the state's employment sits.

Michigan City-La Porte at $53,420, then Muncie $53,340, Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood $51,070, Evansville $50,960 and Elkhart-Goshen $50,950. Every one of those is above the statewide median of $49,730, which tells you that a large share of Indiana's 13,280 welders work outside these metros in smaller manufacturing communities at lower rates.

No, and no state does. Welding qualification is code- and process-specific rather than a general licence: a welder is tested and qualified to weld a particular material, in a particular position, by a particular process, against the applicable standard — American Welding Society codes, ASME for pressure work, or an employer's own procedure qualification. The credential does not transfer across processes, and it lapses without continued work in the qualified process.

Pressure and pipe work, generally. ASME-qualified pipe and pressure vessel welding demands precision, is inspected rigorously and carries serious consequences for failure, which is why it commands premium rates and why it dominates the $60,710 seventy-fifth percentile and $74,880 ninetieth. Stainless and aluminium qualification, and certified welding inspector credentials, also open work above the production floor. General structural steel qualification sits in the middle of the band.

Because supply is abundant. A location quotient of 1.55 means Indiana employs welders at more than one and a half times the national rate — steel, automotive supply, recreational vehicle manufacturing and fabrication all draw on the same trade, and the training infrastructure supporting them is well developed. That depth of supply holds rates below states where welding labour is scarcer. Against it Indiana offers a flat 3.05% state income tax and a cost of living well below the national average.

Because Indiana's welding employment is unusually dispersed. The state's 13,280 welders work not only in the metros listed but across a large number of smaller manufacturing communities that do not meet metropolitan reporting thresholds — and rates in those communities run below the metro figures. When every published metro sits above the statewide median, the arithmetic requires a substantial low-paying population outside them. That is a useful thing to know for anyone choosing where in Indiana to work the trade.

Overtime and employment structure. Shutdown, maintenance and project welding generate intense periods of premium hours that annualise into the figure without being visible, so two welders at the same reported salary can have very different schedules and hourly rates. The occupation also spans production welding on a manufacturing line and code pipe work on a maintenance shutdown, which are different jobs with different skill requirements reported in one row. Contract and travelling welders are captured unevenly.

Process and code qualification first — pipe, pressure vessel, stainless and aluminium work all pay above general production welding, and that is most of the distance from the $45,620 twenty-fifth percentile to the $60,710 seventy-fifth. Then sector, with maintenance, energy and heavy fabrication above automotive and consumer manufacturing. Then mobility, since shutdown and project work carries travel pay and concentrated overtime. And then inspection and supervision credentials, which are what the $74,880 ninetieth percentile describes.