---
title: "Underwater Welder"
description: "A commercial diver who welds, cuts and repairs steel structures underwater, from offshore platforms and pipelines to dams, bridges and ship hulls."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/underwater-welder"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Underwater Welder

**Category:** Installation, Maintenance, and Repair · **SOC code:** 49-9092 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 49-9092.00

A commercial diver who welds, cuts and repairs steel structures underwater, from offshore platforms and pipelines to dams, bridges and ship hulls.

Also advertised as: Commercial Diver Welder; Wet Welder; Diver Welder; Underwater Welding Diver.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $72,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $35.09/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $43,330 to $157,790, with the middle half between $54,810 and $101,550
- **Total US employment:** 3,450
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.8% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 68/100 — 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 3,450 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $43,330 |
| 25th | $54,810 |
| 50th (median) | $72,990 |
| 75th | $101,550 |
| 90th | $157,790 |
| Mean (average) | $88,320 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $161,800 | $151,197 | Not published by BLS |
| NY | $157,800 | $146,218 | 170 |
| RI | $126,320 | $123,504 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $101,540 | $91,709 | 310 |
| HI | $95,750 | $87,084 | 70 |
| NJ | $86,920 | $79,886 | Not published by BLS |
| AZ | $85,990 | $85,412 | Not published by BLS |
| VT | $85,780 | $87,568 | 80 |
| IN | $83,510 | $89,479 | Not published by BLS |
| ME | $74,610 | $76,878 | Not published by BLS |
| KY | $63,550 | $70,487 | Not published by BLS |
| MO | $63,030 | $69,403 | Not published by BLS |
| VA | $62,340 | $61,659 | Not published by BLS |
| LA | $62,230 | $70,550 | 230 |
| CT | $59,690 | $57,610 | 120 |

4 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 19 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/underwater-welder/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/underwater-welder.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 4,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 4,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 200 jobs, or +4.8%. Faster than average: 4.8% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 400 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:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

## What the work involves

- Weld steel structures underwater using wet or habitat welding methods
- Cut steel with thermal or abrasive cutting equipment
- Inspect underwater welds, structures and pipelines
- Rig and install components on platforms, piers and pipelines
- Clean marine growth from structures before work
- Record photos and video for engineers and clients
- Maintain diving equipment and communicate with topside supervisors
- Serve as tender for other divers when not diving

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.9 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.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Equipment Maintenance — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Mechanical — importance 4.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Building and Construction — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Physics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Design — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Arm-Hand Steadiness — importance 3.9 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), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 4.09 |
| I — Investigative | 3.60 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.90 |
| A — Artistic | 1.35 |
| S — Social | 1.10 |

### 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 | 90.9 |
| ISTP | 82.8 |
| ESTJ | 73.7 |
| INTJ | 71.6 |
| ISFJ | 66.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Commercial Diver](https://nuecareer.com/careers/commercial-diver) — median $72,990
- [Rigger](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rigger) — median $62,640
- [Plumber](https://nuecareer.com/careers/plumber) — median $63,800
- [Ship Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/ship-engineer) — median $109,530
- [Sailor and Marine Oiler](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sailor-and-marine-oiler) — median $51,520
- [Boilermaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/boilermaker) — median $76,410
- [Earth Driller, Except Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/earth-driller) — median $60,190
- [Rotary Drill Operator, Oil and Gas](https://nuecareer.com/careers/rotary-drill-operator-oil-and-gas) — median $67,890
- [Dredge Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dredge-operator) — median $49,640
- [Hoist and Winch Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/hoist-and-winch-operator) — median $56,450

## 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/underwater-welder