Statewide pay Government data
Welders in Minnesota earn a statewide median of $60,280 a year, 15% above the typical U.S. metro, ranking #14 of 50 states and DC. About 9,270 people work in the trade statewide.
Statewide pay range
States ranked near Minnesota
See all states on the welders nationwide.
Pay by city Government data
BLS publishes welder pay for 5 Minnesota metros. The highest-paying is St. Cloud at $62,820, followed by Minneapolis and Rochester.
| Metro | Median pay | Real pay | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. CloudMINNESOTA · MN | $62,820 | $71,686 | 620 |
| MinneapolisMINNESOTA · MN | $61,880 | $59,033 | 4,600 |
| RochesterMINNESOTA · MN | $60,380 | $66,482 | 510 |
| DuluthMINNESOTA · MN | $57,410 | $64,674 | 370 |
| MankatoMINNESOTA · MN | $52,940 | $58,205 | 280 |
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 Minnesota'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
Minnesota 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 4 fatality investigations at metal fabrication plants in Minnesota 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 Minnesota Government data
22 schools in Minnesota offer precision metal working (welding, machining, sheet metal) programs below the bachelor's level, 21 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 $52,294 in their first year out.
| School | Credential | Yearly cost | Recent grads | First-year pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anoka Technical College Anoka, MN · Public | Certificate | $26,437 | 169 | $57,915 |
| Hennepin Technical College Brooklyn Park, MN · Public | Certificate | $22,718 | 89 | $64,415 |
| South Central College North Mankato, MN · Public | Certificate | $19,596 | 66 | $47,537 |
| Saint Paul College Saint Paul, MN · Public | Certificate | $25,880 | 56 | $58,976 |
| Dakota County Technical College Rosemount, MN · Public | Certificate | $26,443 | 51 | $53,788 |
| Alexandria Technical & Community College Alexandria, MN · Public | Certificate | $25,840 | 49 | $53,455 |
| Ridgewater College Willmar, MN · Public | Certificate | $23,671 | 45 | $52,031 |
| Minnesota North College Hibbing, MN · Public | Certificate | $19,404 | 43 | $51,286 |
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 Minnesota Official source
The main state licensing office in Minnesota is the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. It can point you to the right license for welders.
Official Minnesota licensing site ↗
Requirements for welders vary by state and sometimes by city; always confirm with the official agency.
Union membership
In 2025, 14.1% of wage and salary workers in Minnesota were union members, above the U.S. rate of about 10% (#11 of 51 states and D.C.), and 15.8% 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 Minnesota
All trades in Minnesota.