Curiousity thread - what's the most money you have ever heard of a welder making?

[Ultan]

£10 an hour, but must be able to mig, tig, read drawings, work on own inititative, coded, and have own tools and supply ppe, but it might just be a rumour

I work for £10 an hour, only coded in a butt weld, don't supply own tools, and I am provided with PPE

 

[8ob]

A pipe fitter/coded welder with a mate, with van, tools, tickets coming out of their ears and prepared to travel sixty mile radius of home get £350 a day as a team. My mate has been on this for many years and moans his hole off because the rates have never changed .

Bob

 

[toddy]

Currently I'm on about 15ph paye making plane parts...
But i do see jobs of up to 25ph for contract jobs with all the tickets in the world.

I am just after a stable permanent job now tbh..
While i was an apprentice on site i could clear 1k a week after tax Inc all the allowances. The main guys were over 2k. But that is doing 70h weeks etc

 

[addjunkie]

The higher the rate, the shorter the job in my experience. Though dodging bullets does tend to pay well.

As for the overseas stuff why pay a brit 500 a day, when the french, Spanish, Portuguese, will do it for 300. And the indians, philipinos for 100 a day. If not less, moan less, fly home less....

 

[Kent]

I am dead sure that a guy earning the std higher level industry rate of mid teens pH. Working a set 40 hours with ot available. Pension contributions and all tools and equipment paid will be better off than most on contract in his lifetime. Hourly rate is meaningless its hours not working, expenses, divorces that rip it to bits.
I only know a few guys and none of them as well as I once did but most by thier mid to late fifties are a lot worse off the guy who took a steady job in a big stable firm. If you understand on cost wages are considerably higher than the hourly rate of a paye employee your getting thier

Anyone who talks about weekly or daily pay is never really sure where or when the next payday might be

Welding as a "welder" ain't the best carrier path that is for sure pay has been slipping and the process being de-skilled almost by the month.

 

[Shox Dr]

Manual labour has never been given the credit it's due, must blokes (inc me) are shot by thier 50s, you're expected to buy all your own gear and work god knows how many hrs to get the job done often miles from home. Be told you're lucky to be on such good money and to earn it while its there

Yet you can get far better money pushing a pen round, telling blokes with far more knowledge and experience what to do. All your gear supplied, and go home at 5 every night.


What would happen if we stopped working, all those suits and ties wouldn't have a clue, and nowt would get gone...well apart from endless meetings looking for someone to either sack or blame but them.

I'm off to put some bread on the table /rant over/

 

[Brad93]

Shox Dr and Kent have hit the nail on the head.

If you are on the really good money jobs you need to be investing in something be it yourself so you can then become a supervisor or manger in the later years, or investing the money into property etc.
One thing is for sure, you don't want to be out on the rigs, or rolling around in a mud pit when you're 50

 

[Kent]

Just remember also when I trained robots were few and basic. It scared the life out of me when I saw my first about 87 ish. Welding a blooming great pipe you could walk into without a single restart. OK useless for adaptability but it's Comming, we also had green screen computers that in reality were only a step up from a word processor and I type this now on a forum that could never have been on a hand held device that takes pictures, videos allows me to search the world. Circa 90 I had a phone in a briefcase size package and sometimes you could actually get service in London enough to make a call to the office in Manchester

 

[matt1978]

You can still earn a decent wage welding, but hardly ever at a fixed place of work, eg the same factory/workshop on a normal 37.5 hour week.

I earned a fair bit as a welder, but it was only ever as a contractor. Travelling and living away from home, the money can be very good, only mainly due to the huge amount of overtime available, digs allowance and productivity bonuses.

Very occasionally super rare and super well paid jobs do come along but they are usually being in the know, word of mouth, right place right time sort of jobs. In the late 90's, I know some lads who were pulling £5k a week, in a supervisory role managing the local labour on a project in Mombassa, Kenya. It was a real sweet gig. No weekend working, living like a king due to the relative low cost of living there, first class return back to the UK once a month. But they didn't have any jobs like that before it and will probably never will again. But they do sometimes come along.

 

[weldgauge]

just over £30ph just now dig monies included in that, but only working 3.5 days a week or 37 hours ltd. made much more in a rig yard at at around 18ph but would get x1.5 ot thought the week and x2 sat n sunday all day with dig monies a day rate on top. those are obvious rates for working away from home but iv never had to take short term work traveling, wouldn't bother my ****. would just take a job at home until the next decent job comes along.

 

[matt1978]

Just remember also when I trained robots were few and basic. It scared the life out of me when I saw my first about 87 ish. Welding a blooming great pipe you could walk into without a single restart. OK useless for adaptability but it's Comming, we also had green screen computers that in reality were only a step up from a word processor and I type this now on a forum that could never have been on a hand held device that takes pictures, videos allows me to search the world. Circa 90 I had a phone in a briefcase size package and sometimes you could actually get service in London enough to make a call to the office in Manchester

We are just at the very start of Industry 4.0, lorded as the 4th Industrial revolution. It is awe inspiring of the things that will be in the workplace within the next 5-10 years.

Basically in a nut shell, it will be like the "plug and play" notion that we are slowly taking for granted within the home, but within the workplace. Every machine used within the production line will be seamlessly linked to each other and all will be "online" and be able to be accessed/controlled by smart phones, tablets and computers etc. The machines will be able to self integrate with other parts of the production line, self diagnose any problems and generate analytical data regarding performance, quality and failure rates etc.

The Italian government are already leading the way by encouraging companies to invest in Industry 4.0, by offering "Hyper Depreciation" on capital expenditure. Basically I think they can write off 80% of the investment within 2 years or something like that.

It is now a hot topic for all of the Governments as well as robot and welding machine manufacturers, so expect some big changes in the coming years

 

[gordon stephenson]

Best I and the rest of our squad earned was in around 2008, It was Christmas time and we had been working all hours on breakdowns, So we all had Christmas hols booked in, Then a turbine and rotary compressor went down, we refused to attend on the grounds that we had worked loads of overtime and wanted the Christmas week off, I was the shop steward and had to inform our management, The said they couldn't budge on our normal rate as it would create a president for the rest of the works, What we worked out they would have to bring us in as self employed through a recruitment firm, They were happy to pay three times our normal £15-00 rate for all hours worked, Needless to say I agreed, That worked out at £45-00 per hour X 84hours for a week of twelve hour shifts total pay for the week was £3780-00 each, A small price to pay when they were loosing £1,000,000 a day while the machine was down, It certainly bought a few extra presents that year,
P.S. Plus they had to pay commission to the recruitment firm for (finding the labour) Must have been the easiest money they ever earned too,

 

[daleyd]

around 1908, It was Christmas time and we had been working all hours on breakdowns, So we

How old are you Gordon?!! Were the turbines on hms deadnought?

 

[Burdekin]

Back many years ago I worked in the mines in Oz, we employed fabricators (boilermakers we call them) and they were paid decent money. Back then (not worked in mining since 2001) mining was the best pay for a tradesman. There was always OT available and good interesting jobs. I was a fitter/machinist but I imagine the fabricators were on similar pay, back in the early 90s I was on $20/hr. The downside the mines are normally in remote places. I think tradesmen in general get much better salaries in Oz than here. The company also use to get a financial advisory company to visit us each year to advise on investing and pensions etc. A big saving back then is a lot of us use to live in single persons accommodation; full board (room, all meals, 24hr access to the mess, electric, laundry, bus to work etc) was $7/w for an apprentice and $15 for a tradesman. They even gave us camping packs for when we went camping free, we couldn't eat all the food; steaks, sausages, bacon, bread, eggs, veggies etc. I doubt you get that now but we were really well looked after.

 

[Shox Dr]

We are just at the very start of Industry 4.0, lorded as the 4th Industrial revolution. It is awe inspiring of the things that will be in the workplace within the next 5-10 years.

Basically in a nut shell, it will be like the "plug and play" notion that we are slowly taking for granted within the home, but within the workplace. Every machine used within the production line will be seamlessly linked to each other and all will be "online" and be able to be accessed/controlled by smart phones, tablets and computers etc. The machines will be able to self integrate with other parts of the production line, self diagnose any problems and generate analytical data regarding performance, quality and failure rates etc.

The Italian government are already leading the way by encouraging companies to invest in Industry 4.0, by offering "Hyper Depreciation" on capital expenditure. Basically I think they can write off 80% of the investment within 2 years or something like that.

It is now a hot topic for all of the Governments as well as robot and welding machine manufacturers, so expect some big changes in the coming years

It's only 30yrs ago we were told robots would be doing everything and we'd all be on 3day weeks jollying it up.

Whats happened, sure they've taken some of the repetitive and mundane work away from a human. But what about the 1 guy watching the bot doing the work of 10, 20 people. He doesnt get a reasonable wage, he gets paid 8ph 'as the bot does it all'....and were're all working mores hrs than bck then for less

 

[Kent]

Best I and the rest of our squad earned was in around 1908, It was Christmas time and we had been working all hours on breakdowns, So we all had Christmas hols booked in, Then a turbine and rotary compressor went down, we refused to attend on the grounds that we had worked loads of overtime and wanted the Christmas week off, I was the shop steward and had to inform our management, The said they couldn't budge on our normal rate as it would create a president for the rest of the works, What we worked out they would have to bring us in as self employed through a recruitment firm, They were happy to pay three times our normal £15-00 rate for all hours worked, Needless to say I agreed, That worked out at £45-00 per hour X 84hours for a week of twelve hour shifts total pay for the week was £3780-00 each, A small price to pay when they were loosing £1,000,000 a day while the machine was down, It certainly bought a few extra presents that year,
P.S. Plus they had to pay commission to the recruitment firm for (finding the labour) Must have been the easiest money they ever earned too,

Chuffing heck that was big money in 1908

 

[normspanners]

How old are you Gordon?!! Were the turbines on hms deadnought?

OY mate He's doin well, leave him alone, anyway he was tired after riveting the Titanic. or was it the Olympic my memory not as good as it was.

 

[daleyd]

OY mate He's doin well, leave him alone, anyway he was tired after riveting the Titanic.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Thanks Daleyd, Typo or brainfart, I have edited to 2008, By the way I'm now 72, (if you are thinking of sending me a present for my next birthday)

 

[gordon stephenson]

I always earned good money on planned shut downs,(which was really all we did) Often four to six weeks of 12 hour shifts, days and nights, To keep meal breaks to an absolute minimum a big portacabin was filled with 14cuft freezers all full of frozen ready meals and treacle sponge etc, Take out what you fancied at the beginning of the shift to de-frost and wright your initials on the lid, Before break time one of the helpers came down from the job and put them in the ovens,It was all head down @rse up and the bare 30 minutes to eat then back on the job, Very tiring but i was younger then and really good pay-packet,