---
title: "Neon Sign Bender"
description: "Heats and bends glass tubing by hand into letters and shapes, then fills it with gas to create glowing neon signs and art."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/neon-sign-bender"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Neon Sign Bender

**Category:** Production · **SOC code:** 51-9195 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 51-9195.04

Heats and bends glass tubing by hand into letters and shapes, then fills it with gas to create glowing neon signs and art.

Also advertised as: Neon Bender; Neon Glass Bender; Neon Artist; Neon Tube Bender; Neon Sign Maker.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $46,170 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $22.20/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,850 to $61,530, with the middle half between $39,280 and $53,000
- **Total US employment:** 33,190
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 5,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 47/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 33,190 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,850 |
| 25th | $39,280 |
| 50th (median) | $46,170 |
| 75th | $53,000 |
| 90th | $61,530 |
| Mean (average) | $47,500 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MT | $57,860 | $61,134 | 150 |
| HI | $55,990 | $50,923 | 40 |
| OR | $52,740 | $51,025 | 410 |
| CT | $52,520 | $50,690 | 170 |
| WA | $51,780 | $48,387 | 1,130 |
| NH | $51,470 | $49,412 | 160 |
| MA | $50,550 | $47,798 | 1,200 |
| MD | $50,360 | $47,981 | 110 |
| CO | $49,530 | $48,063 | 390 |
| CA | $49,190 | $44,427 | 3,590 |
| AZ | $49,060 | $48,730 | 470 |
| VT | $48,660 | $49,674 | 240 |
| ME | $48,640 | $50,118 | 120 |
| WI | $48,030 | $51,044 | 550 |
| DE | $47,940 | $48,032 | 90 |

33 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 48 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/neon-sign-bender/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/neon-sign-bender.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 43,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 45,500 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,500 jobs, or +5.8%. Faster than average: 5.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 5,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Long-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Lay out full-size patterns for letters and designs
- Heat and bend glass tubing into shapes over burners
- Splice tube sections and attach electrodes
- Bombard and evacuate tubes on a vacuum manifold
- Fill tubes with neon or argon and seal them
- Age tubes and test them with transformers
- Repair and restore vintage neon signs
- Install neon units in sign cabinets and displays

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Chemistry — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Engineering and Technology — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visualization — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Visual Color Discrimination — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Finger Dexterity — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.79 |
| C — Conventional | 5.12 |
| A — Artistic | 2.88 |
| I — Investigative | 2.50 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.48 |
| S — Social | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 87.5 |
| ISTP | 77.5 |
| ISFJ | 71.8 |
| INTJ | 69.6 |
| ESTJ | 68.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ. The bank also flags this occupation as introvert-friendly, meaning O\*NET work-context ratings put it low on public contact and performing for the public.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Glass Blower, Molder, Bender, and Finisher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/glass-blower-molder-bender-and-finisher) — median $46,170
- [Molder, Shaper, and Caster, Except Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molder-shaper-and-caster) — median $46,170
- [Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/extruding-forming-pressing-and-compacting-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $45,760
- [Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/molding-coremaking-and-casting-machine-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $44,350
- [Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/welding-soldering-and-brazing-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $47,920
- [Cutting and Slicing Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cutting-and-slicing-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $46,570
- [Tool and Die Maker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tool-and-die-maker) — median $64,050
- [Heat Treating Equipment Setter, Operator, and Tender, Metal and Plastic](https://nuecareer.com/careers/heat-treating-equipment-setter-operator-and-tender-metal-and-plastic) — median $48,750
- [Woodworking Machine Setter, Operator, and Tender, Except Sawing](https://nuecareer.com/careers/woodworking-machine-setter-operator-and-tender) — median $43,380
- [Machine Feeder and Offbearer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/machine-feeder-and-offbearer) — median $41,220

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/neon-sign-bender