How much do boilermakers make in Texas in 2026?

The median boilermaker salary in Texas is $75,750 a year, which works out to about $36.42 an hour based on a standard 2,080-hour work year. That figure comes from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) data published May 2025 and represents the midpoint — half of Texas boilermakers earn more, half earn less.

The bottom quarter of earners in this trade land at $64,870 annually, or roughly $31.19 an hour. Workers at that level are typically early in their careers, newer to the industrial sites in Texas, or picking up hours on smaller maintenance jobs rather than full construction shutdowns. The top quarter clears $80,090 a year — around $38.50 an hour — and those workers tend to be the ones with years of weld certifications, shutdown experience, and the ability to read and fabricate from blueprints without much supervision.

The spread between the 25th and 75th percentile — about $15,220 — tells you there's real room to grow in this trade. A boilermaker moving from entry-level work to a journeyman-level skill set in Texas can realistically push annual pay up by roughly $5,000 to $10,000 before overtime even enters the picture.

Overtime is worth talking about here. Boilermaking in Texas is heavily tied to refinery and petrochemical turnaround work along the Gulf Coast, and those shutdowns run on tight windows. It's not uncommon for workers to put in 50- to 60-hour weeks during a major outage at a refinery in Beaumont, Port Arthur, or Texas City. At $36.42 straight time, overtime hours kick in at $54.63 per hour. A worker logging 200 overtime hours over the course of a year adds more than $10,000 in gross pay on top of their base. The BLS wage figures do not capture that overtime premium — they reflect base hourly rates, not total annual take-home including OT.

Geography within Texas matters. The Houston Ship Channel and the stretch of petrochemical plants from Baytown down through Corpus Christi produce the heaviest concentration of boilermaker work in the state. Workers based near those corridors generally have better access to consistent shutdown work and less travel time eating into their earnings. In contrast, boilermakers taking jobs further inland — in West Texas at power generation facilities or in the Permian Basin — may see different pay structures and longer hauls between gigs, though oil and gas infrastructure there can still generate solid work volumes.

Certifications and weld tests directly influence what a contractor will pay. A boilermaker who holds current ASME Section IX weld certifications, is qualified on multiple processes (SMAW, GTAW, FCAW), and has documented experience on pressure vessels or high-pressure steam systems is in a different pay bracket than someone still working toward those credentials. In Texas, state law doesn't require a specific boilermaker license for workers on industrial sites, but most major contractors require passing a weld test before you start — and some client facilities add their own qualification requirements on top of that.

Apprenticeship programs structured around boilermaking combine on-the-job hours with classroom instruction in blueprint reading, rigging, and welding theory. Completing a formal apprenticeship gives workers documentation of their training hours, which matters when they're applying to larger industrial contractors or trying to get into a higher pay tier. Pay during apprenticeship is typically a percentage of journeyman scale, stepping up as the apprentice logs hours and passes competency checkpoints.

Some Texas boilermakers work under collective bargaining agreements and some do not. If you're covered by a union agreement, your pay floor and fringe benefits are set by that contract — check your local's current agreement for the exact figures, because those terms vary and TradesPays does not have specific union scale data for this trade and state.

The BLS numbers here reflect wages reported by employers and don't include per diem, travel pay, or tool allowances — all of which can add meaningful dollars for boilermakers who travel to project sites. If you're evaluating a job offer, make sure you're comparing total compensation, not just the base hourly rate.