Build the high pressure pipe systems inside power plants, refineries and hospitals. Paid from your first day of training.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$63,800
Apprentice
$44,150
Top tenth
$108,420
The national median is $63,800 a year, and the bottom tenth start near $44,150. The federal survey counts plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters as one group, and the apprentices in that group pull the low end down. Industrial pipefitting in a union local sits near the top.
Starts near half the journeyman rate
First year apprentice, with a raise roughly every six months
Apprentice pay is set as a written percentage of the fully qualified rate and climbs on a schedule until you finish. The classroom part of a registered apprenticeship costs you nothing.
50 to 70 hour weeks
Refinery turnarounds and power plant outages
Overtime is paid at time and a half or double time, and crews sent away from home usually get a daily allowance for food and lodging. The catch is that the work ends when the plant restarts.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A registered apprenticeship pays wages and benefits from the first day and the classroom training is covered by the program, so the low end is just hand tools: boots, levels, wrenches and a bag. The high end is someone who pays for an optional pre apprenticeship welding certificate at a community college, commonly $2,000 to $5,000 in-state, builds a fuller tool kit, pays for their own welding tests at a few hundred dollars each, and sits a state journeyman licence exam at $50 to $200 where one is required. Employers usually pay for the welding tests. This is one of the few paths that ends with savings rather than student loans.
This is one of the few paths where you finish training with savings rather than student loans. The United Association says its apprentices earn wages and benefits from day one with no student debt.
Defined benefit pension
Union pipefitters build a pension from their first hour worked.
Health and dental for the family
Funded by the hours you bank, which is why steady work matters so much.
Annuity on top of the pension
Many local agreements add an hourly amount into a separate retirement account.
Travel and subsistence pay
Paid when a job sends you outside your home area.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A paid apprenticeship. Four to five years, and roughly four days on the job for every day in class.
High school diploma or an equivalency certificate
Grade 12
Math through algebra and geometry, plus shop or welding if offered. You need to be 18, pass a drug test and be physically able to do the work.
Apply to an apprenticeship
Weeks to a year of waiting
Local unions of the United Association run the biggest programs, and there are open shop and contractor association programs too. Applications open in windows, not all year.
Start work as an indentured apprentice
Immediately
You are a paid employee from the first day, working beside qualified fitters.
Work plus classroom training
4 to 5 years
About 2,000 hours of paid on-the-job training a year plus technical instruction covering safety, codes, blueprint reading, math, physics and chemistry.
Journeyman pipefitter
After the hours
Finish your hours, pass your welding tests, and sit your state or local exam if one is required.
Math
Pipe offsets are trigonometry done with a tape measure and a chart.
Welding or metal shop
The fastest way to make an application stand out.
Physics
Pressure, heat and expansion decide how a pipe system is built.
Drafting or blueprint reading
Every job starts from an isometric drawing.
Most states and many cities license plumbers, and a number of them also license pipefitters and steamfitters, especially for anything carrying gas or medical gas. Requirements are usually 2 to 5 years of documented experience plus a written exam on the trade and the local code. Check the state you actually want to work in before assuming you can carry a license across a border, because reciprocity is patchy.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Extra welding qualifications
Stainless, chrome alloy and pipe welding in the hard positions. Each one opens jobs others cannot take.
Medical gas certification
Required to install oxygen and other gas lines in hospitals, and a separate credential from your license.
HVACR (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) service
Year round work when construction slows down.
Rigging and foreman training
Running a crew during an outage pays a premium over tools-on wages.
A welding certificate before you apply
One or two semesters at a community college makes you an obvious pick.
Driver's license and a reliable vehicle
Industrial sites are rarely near transit and shifts start early.
Confined space and fall protection training
Short courses that every site requires anyway.
Willingness to travel
Fitters who chase outages across state lines earn far more than those who stay home.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Report at 6 or 7am for a safety briefing and the day's drawings. Measure, cut and thread or bevel pipe, hang supports, fit spools into place and weld them. A lot of the day is spent working out how a run of pipe gets from here to there past everything already in the way. Near the end of a job you help pressure test the system, and nobody goes home until it holds.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Pipefitters build the pipe systems that carry liquids and gases through industry. Steamfitters are pipefitters who work on systems under high pressure and heat, like steam lines in a power plant. In most union locals they are trained together and the titles are used interchangeably.
The United Association says it represents roughly 409,000 plumbers, pipefitters, sprinkler fitters, service technicians, welders and pipeliners across North America.
The federal Registered Apprenticeship system reports more than 800,000 apprentices nationally each year, across construction, manufacturing and health care. About 93 percent are still employed after finishing.
To run a pipe around an obstacle you calculate the angle and the travel distance, then cut to a fraction of an inch. Fitters do that arithmetic dozens of times a day, usually from a pocket chart rather than a calculator.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.