Plumber and welder are the two trades people picture when they imagine working with their hands, and they make an instructive pair because their money arrives by opposite mechanisms. The plumber’s income is protected by a licence and a local reputation; the welder’s is protected only by skill, and it travels to wherever the work is.
The short answer
Choose plumber if you want a licensed trade with a defined apprenticeship, steady local demand, and the strongest self-employment ceiling in the trades — a one-van service business. Choose welder if you want to be earning within months, you are genuinely mobile, and the idea of certifying into harder alloys and higher rates appeals more than climbing a licensing ladder. Both medians hide wide ranges; the difference is who controls the range.
Pay, side by side
| Plumber | Welder | |
|---|---|---|
| Median annual wage (May 2025) | $63,800 | $53,750 |
| Median hourly wage | $30.67 | $25.84 |
| Jobs, 2025 | 510,600 | 437,700 |
| Projected growth, 2025–35 | 7% | 2% |
| Average annual openings | 42,000 | 40,300 |
| Typical entry | High school diploma, apprenticeship | High school diploma, on-the-job training |
The $10,050 median gap is the licence’s wage, and it compounds: union plumbers add pension and health benefits worth roughly another third on top of hourly pay, and the ownership ceiling — a one-van operation clearing multiples of journeyman wage — has no clean equivalent in welding. The welding counter-offer is speed and travel: full wages within six to eighteen months, and pipeline or shutdown rosters that can clear six figures in a strong year through 60-to-70-hour weeks plus per diem.
Licence versus skill
The training structures explain most of the pay difference:
- Plumber. A four-to-five-year registered apprenticeship with paid hours and classroom time, then journeyman licensure, then (optionally) master and contractor licences. Every rung legally limits who can compete with you. The entry queue is real but usually shorter than electrical’s.
- Welder. Certificates run six to eighteen months, and shops train from the ground up. After that, your rate tracks certifications — stainless, aluminum, exotic alloys, code work — and your willingness to travel. Nothing legally restricts competition; production MIG work pays at or below the median partly for exactly that reason.
The framing that survives contact with reality: plumbing costs years and then pays you partly for having endured them; welding pays immediately and asks you to keep proving the rate forever.
What the day actually feels like
The plumber’s day splits into two worlds. Construction plumbing is planned: rough-in, trim-out, inspection cycles, working from prints alongside other trades. Service plumbing is diagnostic and dramatic — the flooded basement, the 2 a.m. call, the repipe sold in the customer’s kitchen. The wear concentrates in knees and lower back: kneeling, crawling, confined spaces, heavy lifting.
The welder’s day is arc time, fit-up, grinding, and inspection. Shop welding is repetitive and paced by the line; field welding is weather, heights, confined spaces, and travel. The signature wear is heat, fumes, UV exposure, and long holds in postures the body remembers. Both trades are harder on the body than their medians admit, in different joints.
Job market and stability
Plumbing is projected to grow 7% from 2025 to 2035, with 42,000 openings a year across 510,600 jobs — most replacing retirees. Demand is structural: every building has water, and nobody DIYs a main line. The trade is also the least exportable and the most locally stable.
Welding grows just 2%, with 40,300 openings a year — nearly all replacements, which is the retirement wave that keeps entry feasible. Automation presses hardest on production work and least on code and field work; that split is where the career decision lives inside welding. For a comparison against the electrical side of the licensed trades, see welder vs electrician.
Which one to pick
Pick plumbing if you can commit to a multi-year apprenticeship, you want the licence’s protection and a realistic path to owning the van, and you would rather be busy in your own city than rich on a roster. Pick welding if income timing matters more, mobility is an asset rather than a cost, and the certification-chase model of raises suits you. If the comparison you actually care about is between the two licensed trades, that is electrician vs plumber.
A three-question self-test
The medians are $10,050 apart, and the training paths are years apart. Three questions usually settle it.
Question one: what does income timing look like for you
Welding pays full wages in months; plumbing pays apprentice wages for four to five years before the licence converts to scale. If you need steady income this year and cannot carry apprentice wages through a queue, welding is the pragmatic door. If you can wait, the licence out-earns most welding careers without leaving town.
Question two: is home a fixed point
Above-median welding money is mostly travel money — pipeline runs, shutdowns, per diem. If staying near home is non-negotiable, welding’s realistic local ceiling is production-shop pay, which sits at or below the median. Plumbing’s money is precisely where home is: local licences, local reputations, local emergency calls.
Question three: which kind of ownership appeals to you
Plumbing has the cleanest ownership ladder in the trades: journeyman, then master, then the one-van business, with the licensing risk and the 2 a.m. phone that come with it. Welding ownership exists — mobile rig welding, fabrication shops — but it is rarer and rides on certifications and contacts. If owning the business is the ten-year goal, plumbing is the more paved road.
Questions people ask before choosing
Four questions decide this comparison for most people. The short answers are below; the sections above have the numbers.
Which pays more, a plumber or a welder?
At the median, plumber: $63,800 against $53,750 in May 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics — a $10,050 gap. But welding’s distribution is the widest in the trades, and pipeline and shutdown welders can clear six figures in a strong year. The median is not the offer on either side.
Which takes longer to train for?
Plumber, by years: a four-to-five-year registered apprenticeship against six-to-eighteen months of welding certificates. The counterweight is that plumbing apprentices earn while they train, and the licence at the end is the asset. The apprenticeship, hour by hour, is described in what a plumber actually does.
Which is easier on the body?
Different damage. Plumbing loads the knees and lower back — kneeling, crawling, confined spaces, lifting. Welding adds heat, fumes, UV exposure, and overhead holds. If your knees are the concern, welding is kinder; if heat and fumes are, plumbing is. The welder’s day, sector by sector, is in what a welder actually does all day. Still torn? The three-question self-test above turns it into a decision.
Can welding experience count toward a plumbing apprenticeship?
Hours do not transfer between trades — each licence tracks its own documented hours. Practical skills carry over more than credentials do: comfort with tools, prints, torch work, and industrial sites shortens the learning curve but not the logbook. Most people who make the switch do it early, before years of welding wages raise the cost of starting over.
Sources
Wage, employment, growth, and openings figures for both occupations: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters and Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers, median pay as of May 2025, projections 2025–2035, checked November 2026. Apprenticeship and licensing structures reflect registered-apprenticeship standards and state boards. How we choose and check sources is described in our editorial policy.