Statewide pay Government data
Welders in Arizona earn a statewide median of $55,600 a year, 6% above the typical U.S. metro, ranking #27 of 50 states and DC. About 7,270 people work in the trade statewide.
Statewide pay range
States ranked near Arizona
See all states on the welder overview.
Pay by city Government data
BLS publishes welder pay for 7 Arizona metros. The highest-paying is Phoenix at $56,540, followed by Flagstaff and Sierra Vista.
| Metro | Median pay | Real pay | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| PhoenixARIZONA · AZ | $56,540 | $54,725 | 5,440 |
| FlagstaffARIZONA · AZ | $54,460 | $54,284 | 60 |
| Sierra VistaARIZONA · AZ | $53,160 | $59,568 | 50 |
| Prescott ValleyARIZONA · AZ | $51,300 | $52,211 | 200 |
| TucsonARIZONA · AZ | $51,150 | $52,789 | 740 |
| Lake Havasu CityARIZONA · AZ | $50,030 | $53,168 | 110 |
| YumaARIZONA · AZ | $49,680 | $53,589 | 120 |
Pay: BLS OEWS, May 2025 (metro-level). Real pay: BEA price parities, 2024. How we calculate
Pay outside the cities Government data
BLS also reports pay for Arizona's rural (nonmetropolitan) regions.
BLS OEWS nonmetropolitan areas, May 2025.
The job (national)
Use hand-welding, flame-cutting, hand-soldering, or brazing equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products.
Nationally, jobs are projected to grow 2.4% from 2025 to 2035, with about 40,300 openings a year. Typical training: moderate-term on-the-job training.
Nationally, welders have 43 injuries or illnesses serious enough to miss work per 10,000 full-time workers, 50% below the rate for all jobs (87). The most common cause is being struck by or caught in objects and equipment.
What the work is like Government data
How often welders deal with each condition, from surveys of workers in the job.
Getting started usually takes some preparation (high school plus months of training).
O*NET 31.0 Work Context and Job Zones (U.S. Department of Labor), national.
Serious injuries & deaths reported to OSHA Government data
Arizona runs its own workplace-safety program (an OSHA State Plan), so its injury reports aren't in the federal dataset. Nationally, in states federal OSHA covers, metal fabrication plants filed 4,763 severe injury reports from 2015 to 2024; the most common cause was contact with objects and equipment (77%). OSHA also opened 3 fatality investigations at metal fabrication plants in Arizona over the same years (federal and state programs).
OSHA Severe Injury Reports, January 2015–December 2024 (states under federal OSHA only).
Fatality investigations: OSHA Fatality Inspection Data, events 2015–2024, all states.
Where to train in Arizona Government data
18 schools in Arizona offer precision metal working (welding, machining, sheet metal) programs below the bachelor's level, 14 of them at public colleges. Many people in this trade learn through an apprenticeship instead; a program can shorten it or get you hired as a helper.
Where published, graduates earned a median of $41,896 in their first year out.
| School | Credential | Yearly cost | Recent grads | First-year pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mesa Community College Mesa, AZ · Public | Certificate | $17,052 | 388 | — |
| Refrigeration School Inc Phoenix, AZ · Private for-profit | Certificate | $25,079 | 313 | $43,908 |
| Northland Pioneer College Holbrook, AZ · Public | Certificate | $16,293 | 186 | — |
| Universal Technical Institute of Arizona Inc Avondale, AZ · Private for-profit | Certificate | $36,838 | 175 | $45,023 |
| Miller-Motte College-Arizona Automotive Institute Glendale, AZ · Private for-profit | Certificate | $27,309 | 126 | $39,883 |
| Cochise County Community College District Sierra Vista, AZ · Public | Certificate | $14,744 | 93 | — |
| Yavapai College Prescott, AZ · Public | Certificate | $10,542 | 83 | — |
| East Valley Institute of Technology Mesa, AZ · Public | Certificate | — | 75 | $37,766 |
U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (data updated October 2026). Cost is the school's average yearly cost of attendance before financial aid; earnings are the median for graduates one year after finishing, shown only where the school has enough graduates to publish. “—” means not published.
Licensing in Arizona Official source
The main state licensing office in Arizona is the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. Licenses all trades by classification. It can point you to the right license for welders.
Official Arizona licensing site ↗
Requirements for welders vary by state and sometimes by city; always confirm with the official agency.
Union membership
In 2025, 4.1% of wage and salary workers in Arizona were union members, below the U.S. rate of about 10% (#45 of 51 states and D.C.), and 4.5% were covered by a union contract. These figures cover all jobs in the state, not only welders.
BLS Union Members, 2025 (Current Population Survey), table 5.
Cities in Arizona
All trades in Arizona.