Welder Salary in Texas 2026,
$53,340 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas welders earn a median $53,340 a year, $25.64 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $45,750 and $64,770 and a full range of $38,380 to $80,240. That is 0.8% below the $53,750 national median before tax and above it after, because Texas takes no income tax.

Odessa at $63,470 and Midland at $61,410 — the Permian Basin pair — followed by Corpus Christi at $59,450, Beaumont-Port Arthur at $59,190 and Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $59,040. Every published metro is above the statewide median of $53,340, because the metros are where the oilfield fabrication, refining and shipyard work concentrates while general shop welding is spread everywhere.

No. Texas issues no welding licence, registration or state examination. What matters instead is procedure qualification: employers test welders to the specific procedure and code the job runs under — AWS D1.1 for structural, API 1104 for pipeline, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code for pressure work — and issue a welder performance qualification record. AWS Certified Welder status is a portable credential, but on a Texas jobsite the current qualification record for that procedure is the operative document.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so a welder at the median of $53,340 keeps the whole amount apart from federal tax — including the concentrated overtime and per diem earned on refinery turnarounds and pipeline projects, which for many Texas welders is a large share of annual income.

Code pipe welding on Gulf Coast turnarounds and Permian pipeline projects, and specialty alloy work. Refinery and petrochemical turnarounds at Corpus Christi and Beaumont-Port Arthur run intensive schedules at premium rates with per diem; pipeline work behind Odessa's $63,470 metro figure pays for mobility and speed. Above that, exotic alloy, stainless and nuclear-grade qualifications are the scarcest skills in the state and reach the $80,240 ninetieth percentile.

Because oilfield fabrication and midstream construction need code-qualified welders in places with almost no resident labour force. Odessa at $63,470 and Midland at $61,410 sit above every Gulf Coast metro on this table not because the work is harder but because the operators must attract welders to West Texas and keep them there against a housing market that spikes with the rig count. The premium is a recruitment premium, and it moves with the oil price — which is the one honest warning to attach to those two numbers.

Two things. First, the annualised median assumes steady work, and welding in Texas is heavily project-based: turnarounds, pipeline pushes and construction phases produce very high-hour periods separated by gaps, so actual annual earnings vary far more than the $38,380 to $80,240 band implies. Second, a substantial number of Texas welders work as contractors or through staffing arrangements rather than as direct employees, and that income is not fully captured in a wage survey.

Process qualification and mobility. The lower figure is production and structural work on a fixed shop schedule. The upper is code pipe welding — TIG root, stick fill, qualified to ASME or API — performed on turnaround and pipeline schedules that demand travel, night shifts and long weeks. The second job requires passing a specific weld test, not accumulating years, which is why welders in Texas can move up the band quickly by taking the test rather than waiting for seniority. And Texas taxes none of the increase.