Best Jobs For Former Welders [2023]

It’s tough to be a welder nowadays, and more and more of them are losing confidence in their own profession.

While the amount of people majoring in courses preparing people for a job as a welder isn’t necessarily dropping, fewer and fewer people are applying to become welders in the first place and the workforce itself is looking grim.

With so many welders no longer sticking around, this begs the question:

What are they all doing now?

We were curious, so we looked through the resumes of former welders to see what kind of jobs they were moving into after leaving the field. There were thousands of answers, so we made the cutoff at the top 100 jobs.

But given that there are some very surprising and interesting items on this list, we’ve decided to highlight a few of those instead.

Best Jobs For Former WELDERS

Some of these items are admittedly more attractive than one another as far as actually working the job goes, but one way or another, you’ve got to admit they’re eye-catching.

The full list of those jobs can be found below.

Detailed Ranking of the Most Common Jobs of Former WELDERS

Rank	Job Title	%
1	Welder Fitter	5.06%
2	Maintenance Technician	2.71%
3	Pipe Welder	1.75%
4	Mechanic	1.28%
5	Machine Operator	1.23%
6	Structural Welder	1.18%
7	Millwright	0.96%
8	Technician	0.96%
9	Maintenance Welder	0.94%
10	Sheet Metal Mechanic	0.86%
11	Tig Welder	0.83%
12	Driver	0.77%
13	Owner	0.74%
14	Lead Welder	0.74%
15	Owner/operator	0.72%
16	Forklift Operator	0.71%
17	Millwright/welder	0.71%
18	Supervisor	0.68%
19	Operator	0.66%
20	Iron Worker	0.66%
21	Mig Welder	0.61%
22	Carpenter	0.59%
23	Equipment Operator	0.58%
24	Weld Inspector	0.57%
25	Machinist	0.55%
26	Quality Control Inspector	0.53%
27	Truck Driver	0.51%
28	Farm Hand	0.49%
29	Combo Welder	0.48%
30	Heavy Equipment Operator	0.48%
31	Sales Associate	0.48%
32	Material Handler	0.48%
33	Pipefitter/welder	0.46%
34	Service Technician	0.45%
35	Foreman	0.45%
36	Fabricator	0.45%
37	Welder-Assembler	0.45%
38	Electrician	0.42%
39	Metal Fabricator	0.41%
40	Customer Service Representative	0.41%
41	Assembler	0.4%
42	Crane Operator	0.38%
43	Field Service Technician	0.37%
44	Numerical Control Operator	0.35%
45	Ship Fitter	0.34%
46	Pipe Fitter	0.34%
47	Delivery Driver	0.33%
48	Lead Person	0.33%
49	Computer Numerical Controller Machinist	0.33%
50	Team Leader	0.33%
51	Journeyman Welder	0.33%
52	Welding Supervisor	0.32%
53	Warehouse Worker	0.32%
54	Production Supervisor	0.32%
55	Boilermaker Welder	0.32%
56	Operations Manager	0.31%
57	Ironworker/welder	0.31%
58	Shop Foreman	0.31%
59	Diesel Mechanic	0.29%
60	Project Manager	0.29%
61	Production Worker	0.28%
62	Cook	0.28%
63	Press Operator	0.28%
64	Forklift Driver	0.27%
65	Welding Foreman	0.27%
66	Combination Welder	0.26%
67	Helper	0.26%
68	Painter	0.26%
69	Journeyman	0.26%
70	Cashier	0.26%
71	Manager	0.25%
72	Floor Hand	0.25%
73	Inspector	0.24%
74	Superintendent	0.24%
75	Welder Helper	0.23%
76	Certified Welding Inspector	0.23%
77	Welder/machinist	0.23%
78	Security Officer	0.22%
79	Heavy Equipment Mechanic	0.2%
80	Aluminum Welder	0.2%
81	Ranch Hand	0.2%
82	Welder First Class	0.2%
83	Welder Operator	0.2%
84	Engineer	0.19%
85	Coal Miner	0.19%
86	Robotic Welder	0.18%
87	Quality Control	0.18%
88	Warehouse Associate	0.18%
89	Maintenance Supervisor	0.17%
90	Internship	0.17%
91	Assistant Manager	0.17%
92	Boiler Maker	0.17%
93	Manufacturing Engineer	0.16%
94	Construction Worker	0.16%
95	Engineering Technician	0.16%
96	Welder-Machine Operator	0.16%
97	General Manager	0.16%
98	Woodworking Shop Hand	0.16%
99	Installer	0.16%
100	Ship Worker	0.16%

Most Common Jobs For Former WELDERS

These are all good jobs, all of them either utilizing some skill that a welder would have or being a stepping stone to a different career.

Here’s the thing about these jobs though — they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect a lot of former welders to do.

How We Determined the Best Jobs of Former WELDERS

Using resume information from our database of over 7 million resumes, we looked at all resumes that listed welder under their work history. Then we looked at which jobs showed up on their work histories following their stints as a welder, sorting them by their most frequent.

That’s how we made the initial ranked list.

To make our list of most interesting jobs, we looked through the ranked list to see if any positions:

Showed up in fewer than 1% of all new jobs
And, were not part of the 100 most common jobs in our database

Author

Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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