Welders in the San Juan area earn a median of $30,390 a year, 42% below the typical U.S. metro. That ranks #379 of 382 metros for welder salaries across the U.S..
Within driving distance, the same work pays more in Ponce, but less in Arecibo.
It's one of 5 Puerto Rico metros with published pay for this trade; see statewide welder pay.
Welder pay in San Juan at a glance
- Welders in the San Juan, PR metro earn a median $30,390 a year ($14.61 an hour), #379 of 382 U.S. metros (BLS, May 2025).
- The middle 80% earn between $27,060 and $36,530.
- A typical 1-bedroom rents for $581 a month, 23% of the median pay (HUD, FY2027).
- About 1,240 welders work in the metro.
Check your pay here
Enter a rate to see where it falls among welders in San Juan.
Comparing two real offers with overtime and commutes? Use the job offer checker.
What this means Our calculation
Pay for welders here is in the bottom 20% of U.S. metros.
San Juan scorecard for welders Our calculation
Grades compare San Juan with every other U.S. metro for this trade (A = top 20%).
Pay Government data
Pay range
Shaded: the middle half of workers.
Pay over time
The median pay for welders in the San Juan area went from $22,980 in 2020 to $30,390 in 2025, up 32.2%. Prices rose 25% over the same period, so after inflation that's +5.5% — a real raise.
BLS OEWS, May 2020–May 2025; inflation: CPI-U (May to May). Year-to-year changes can include survey noise.
Compared with nearby metros
Rent in San Juan
Typical rent is $581 a month for a 1-bedroom and $683 for a 2-bedroom.
What welders do
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.
Most important day-to-day tasks
- Operate safety equipment and use safe work habits.
- Examine workpieces for defects and measure workpieces with straightedges or templates to ensure conformance with specifications.
- Weld components in flat, vertical, or overhead positions.
- Detect faulty operation of equipment or defective materials and notify supervisors.
- Recognize, set up, and operate hand and power tools common to the welding trade, such as shielded metal arc and gas metal arc welding equipment.
Outlook & getting started
Nationally, welder jobs are projected to grow 2.4% from 2025 to 2035 (all jobs: 3.5%), with about 40,300 openings a year. About 4% are self-employed.
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.
Licensing in Puerto Rico Official source
Check with local authorities in Puerto Rico. Check with the building or licensing office where you plan to work.
Requirements for welders vary by state and sometimes by city; always confirm with the official agency.
On-the-job safety Government data
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.
BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 2023–2024 (national, cases with days away from work).
Highest-paying PR metros for welders
| Metro | Median | Real pay | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|
| PoncePUERTO RICO · PR | $31,680 | — | 100 |
| San JuanPUERTO RICO · PR | $30,390 | — | 1,240 |
| MayaguezPUERTO RICO · PR | $30,230 | — | 70 |
| AreciboPUERTO RICO · PR | $29,380 | — | 150 |
| AguadillaPUERTO RICO · PR | $28,450 | — | 90 |
See every metro in Puerto Rico.
How much work is there? Government data
Getting to work
The average commute in the San Juan area is 30 minutes each way, longer than the typical metro (24 min). 22% of commuters spend 45 minutes or more. 82% drive alone, 1% take transit and 6% work from home (all workers, not just trades).
Census American Community Survey, 2024 1-year estimates (table S0801).
New construction
In 2025 the San Juan area approved permits for 1,546 new homes (1,459 single-family), or 0.8 per 1,000 residents, ranking #371 of 393 metros.
Where to train near San Juan Government data
5 schools in or near San Juan offer precision metal working (welding, machining, sheet metal) programs below the bachelor's level, 1 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 $34,296 in their first year out.
| School | Credential | Yearly cost | Recent grads | First-year pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mech-Tech College Caguas, PR · Private for-profit | Certificate | $20,396 | 227 | — |
| NUC University Bayamon, PR · Private for-profit | Certificate | $19,031 | 37 | $40,022 |
| Automeca Technical College-Caguas Caguas, PR · Private for-profit | Certificate | $15,109 | 35 | — |
| Mech-Tech College Caguas, PR · Private for-profit | Associate degree | $20,396 | 31 | $28,570 |
| Automeca Technical College-Bayamon Bayamon, PR · Private for-profit | Certificate | $14,414 | 16 | — |
| Escuela De Troqueleria Y Herramentaje Bayamon, PR · Public | Certificate | — | 12 | — |
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.
Employee vs. working for yourself Your scenario
A model, not a market rate. It shows the break-even rate to match a $30,390 employee salary once you cover what an employer normally pays for (including the employer half of Social Security and Medicare, 7.65%), then adds your profit margin. Change any number.
Break-even rate
With your profit margin
How this calculator works. Weighing a contractor job against a W-2 one? Try the 1099 vs. W-2 comparison. Billable hours are hours you can charge a customer. Driving, quoting, paperwork and slow weeks aren't billable, which is why 1,400 is a common starting point versus 2,080 paid hours as an employee.
Get welder pricing & estimate templates →Compare San Juan with another city →
Keep exploring
Could this trade pay more somewhere else?
ToolBest cities for weldersRank every metro on pay, buying power, rent and jobs.Is a job offer here any good?
ToolCheck an offer in San JuanSee where it falls among local welders, after the commute.Could you afford to live here?
ToolSan Juan budgetMonthly take-home, HUD rent and local prices on this pay.About this data
Local to the San Juan metro: pay (BLS, May 2025) and pay over time (2020–2025, CPI-adjusted), prices (BEA, 2024), rent (HUD, FY2027), new construction, housing, population and commuting (Census), unemployment (BLS) and business counts (Census, by industry). National: job outlook and training (BLS projections), injury rates (BLS) and duties (O*NET). Jobs are employment estimates, not open positions; grades rank San Juan against every other metro for welders. Every source, year and formula is on our data page.
Report a data issue on this page
BEA doesn't publish price levels for San Juan, so real pay isn't shown. The Census doesn't publish one-person business or competition figures for welders as a separate industry, so that section is left out.