SAFE
Boilermakers assemble, weld, and repair pressure vessels, boilers, and tanks inside confined, hot, awkward spaces at refineries, power plants, and shipyards — work no current robot can do at cost. AI touches only the thin paper layer: reading blueprints, weld procedure documentation, and inspection reports. The real constraints are ASME code welding qualifications, rigging skill, and diagnosing corrosion and leaks by hand and eye during tight turnaround windows.
Part 2020 shock, part continued decline in the years since.
Median pay $63,100 → $76,410 -3.1% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
-2.4% 10,400 → 10,100 on the projections basis
Hard to automate, but shrinking anyway
The work resists current AI, yet the BLS projects -2.4% by 2034. Whatever is shrinking this occupation, the evidence does not point to automation — demand, demographics, offshoring and industry decline all shrink jobs that no machine could do.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~800 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
FitterErectorAssemblerBoilermakerBoiler MakerBoiler FitterBoiler SetterBoiler TesterBoiler WelderBoiler ErectorBoiler RelinerBoiler MechanicPressure TesterBoiler InstallerBoiler RepairmanBoilermaker FitterBoilermaker WelderBoiler Shop MechanicBoilerhouse MechanicBoilermaker MechanicBoilermaker JourneymanIndustrial BoilermakerLocomotive BoilermakerBoilermaker Pipe Fitter
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: trust premium .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Rolling and bending shell plate, aligning drums with jacks and wedges, back-gouging a root pass overhead inside a mud drum, and replacing tubes through a 16-inch manhole are tasks that require a body in the vessel rather than a shop-floor gantry, so only the takeoff, weld-map, and NDE paperwork sit within reach of software — that's why this is 18 and not a mixed 12.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You work inside the vessel: confined-space entry permits, 120°F stack temperatures during a boiler outage, scaffolds and stagings you build yourself, torch and stinger in hand, in geometry that changes at every plant — this is the ceiling case for uncontrolled physical environments, not merely a field job.
Certification preferred, not legally required You hold real credentials — ASME Section IX procedure qualifications, an R-stamp or NB shop's welder continuity records, sometimes state boiler-repair endorsements — and a failed radiograph is traced to your stencil, but the Authorized Inspector signs the R-1 form and the certificate holder carries the code liability, which puts this at 10 rather than up with a PE or licensed operating engineer.
Meaningful discretion Deciding whether wall thinning warrants a pad weld or a full tube section, calling a rigging plan for a 40-ton drum through a boiler house door, and judging fit-up and preheat when the drawing doesn't match the as-built vessel are all discretionary calls — but WPSs, lift plans, and the Authorized Inspector's hold points bound them, so 12 rather than a 16 where you'd own the ambiguity alone.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (18/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (10/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (7/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (12/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 29 of this occupation's 67 points (43%).
Embodiment (20/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 81/100, still SAFE.
Extension of ASME Section IX welder performance qualification requirements to explicitly cover machine/automatic welding operators with the same continuity-of-qualification and re-test burden as manual welders, so an automated orbital or robotic weld on a pressure boundary still needs a named qualified human accepting it. Already partially in motion via Section IX machine-welding variables and API 577 practice.
Two-tier shift: if fabrication-shop panel and tube-bank work continues migrating to automated shop welding cells, the field remainder concentrates in confined-space repair, distortion control, and discovered-corrosion diagnosis — the tier no automation touches. This raises measured resistance of the surviving job without any regulatory change, while shrinking headcount.
Nuclear Section III / NRC 10 CFR 50 Appendix B work and Navy shipyard SUBSAFE specs where owners write manual-process requirements and named-welder traceability into the contract. This is a narrow segment premium for a specific qualified human, not a general buyer preference, and it does not extend to refinery or industrial boiler work.
State/jurisdictional boiler codes tie liability to the vessel's ASME Code stamp and the National Board R-stamp holder, not to the individual welder. If NBIC or state boiler-safety boards (e.g. the Nat'l Board's push for traceable weld records) added a rule that the named welder-of-record must personally sign each pressure-retaining weld log and remain identified for the life of the repair — the way NDE Level II/III technicians already sign radiographs — the shield would become personal rather than corporate.
Turnaround fitness-for-service calls (weld out vs. replace a corroded section, accept a leaking tube plug) currently sit with the API 510/570 inspector or plant engineer. If insurers underwriting boiler-and-machinery coverage (FM Global, Travellers Equipment Breakdown) began requiring a documented sign-off from the lead craft on discovered-condition scope changes as a condition of coverage, the boilermaker's judgment becomes a recorded, consequential call rather than an informal recommendation.
The limit. Embodiment is already maxed at 20 and cannot rise. The realistic ceiling here is roughly the mid-70s: the binding risk for boilermakers is not AI substitution but demand contraction — coal plant retirements, refinery closures, and shop-prefabrication moving field hours into factories. A higher score on this register would not protect against that.
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 1,170 | $77,090 +1% |
| Baton Rouge, LA | 680 | $74,730 -2% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 330 | $82,420 +8% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 320 | $110,370 +44% |
| Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX | 230 | $73,060 -4% |
| Corpus Christi, TX | 170 | $64,660 -15% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 140 | $86,910 +14% |
| New Orleans-Metairie, LA | 120 | $77,290 +1% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 50 | $135,290 +77% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 320 | $110,370 +44% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 90 | $109,640 +43% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 67. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.