TIG Welder Jobs: Coding, Positions and Weld Tests in the US, UK and Nigeria

Three adverts, three different asks. A Harris County fabricator wants a “TIG welder, stainless, must pass an ASME IX 6G test”. A Lincolnshire engineering contractor wants a “coded TIG welder, ISO 9606-1, current coding essential, CCNSG required”. A Port Harcourt contractor wants an “argon welder, oil and gas experience, BOSIET an advantage, Nigerian content documentation required”. None asks for a welding diploma, because welding does not really have one. What all three want is narrower and more specific than most applicants realise.

This guide starts with the thing that travels — what a welding certificate actually qualifies you to do, and why it expires — then takes the three markets one at a time, because the codes, the site cards and the money behind them differ in each. It finishes with how to read an advert past “must pass a weld test”, and what to put on a CV.

A welding certificate is a range, not a rank

Welders arrive at a shop with a folder and still fail to get hired because there is no general licence to weld. What exists is a chain of three documents, and your certificate is only the last link.

• WPS — Welding Procedure Specification. The instruction sheet for one joint: process, material, thickness, joint design, filler, gas, purge, current and polarity, preheat, interpass temperature, passes. This is what you weld to, and on a controlled job it sits at the workstation.
• PQR — Procedure Qualification Record. The evidence that the WPS produces a sound weld, proved once by destructive testing. It qualifies the procedure, not any person; welders never own one.
• WPQ / welder qualification certificate. The evidence that you can execute that procedure. This is your coding, written as a set of ranges rather than a title.

The ranges are the whole point: process, material group, position, thickness range, pipe diameter range, filler group, and whether the root was welded with or without backing. Weld outside any of them and you are not qualified, however good you are. That is why “I have a TIG certificate” tells a welding engineer almost nothing, and “GTAW, 6G, P-No. 8, 3 mm to 12 mm, no backing, tested 11 March” tells them everything.

Positions, and why one of them is worth more than the rest

If you only ever take one test, take it on pipe. A 3G plate coupon is cheap to sit and cheap to hire against; a 6G coupon on heavy-wall pipe with a TIG root is the one that most changes what you are offered, because few people in your town can pass it.

Continuity: the part that quietly expires

A coding is not a permanent possession. Under ASME Section IX your qualification lapses once you have gone six months without welding with that process, and one test coupon brings it back. Under BS EN ISO 9606-1 the certificate carries a fixed expiry — three years, subject to conditions — and stays valid only if your employer or the examiner signs it every six months to confirm you are working inside its range; going past the expiry needs documented test records on recent production welds, or a re-test. AWS D1.1 takes the same six-month view.

So keep your own copies with the continuity signatures visible — the original lives in an employer’s quality file and you will not get it back after a redundancy. And a gap in employment is a gap in your coding: if you have been out of the trade for a season, say so and offer to test.

Why TIG is hired as its own trade

The process named in an advert describes the material and the tolerance.

• GTAW / TIG / argon welding (ISO 141). Tungsten electrode, argon shielding, filler added by hand, so heat and deposition are controlled separately. The answer for thin-wall stainless, aluminium, titanium and nickel alloys, and for pipe roots inspected from the inside.
• SMAW / stick (111). Flux-coated electrode, tolerant of wind and rust — why it survives outdoors and on structural steel.
• GMAW / MIG and MAG (131 / 135). Solid wire, fast deposition, the workhorse of production fabrication.
• FCAW / flux-cored (136 / 138). Tubular wire, heavy plate and structural work, common on site and in shipyards.

The highest-paid combination in most markets is not TIG alone but the combo welder: a TIG root followed by stick or flux-core fill and cap on pipe, advertised as “TIG root, stick out” or “combination pipe welder”. If you can already run a clean, fully fused TIG root with a back purge, learning to fill behind it is the fastest route to the top of the local band.

United States: two codes, an employer’s test, and the travel question

D1.1 or Section IX — find out before you apply

Almost all American welding work sits under one of two families. AWS D1.1, the Structural Welding Code for steel, governs buildings, bridges (through D1.5) and heavy structural fabrication. ASME Section IX governs welder and procedure qualification for pressure equipment and is pulled in by the piping codes B31.1 and B31.3; cross-country pipelines use API 1104. TIG concentrates on the ASME side — stainless process piping, tube bundles, food, pharmaceutical and semiconductor tube — while structural work is mostly wire and stick. The advert tells you which: “D1.1 3G/4G” is structural plate, “ASME IX 6G on 2 inch schedule 80” is process pipe, “orbital” or “high purity” is hygienic tube.

The qualification belongs to the employer

Under Section IX and D1.1 alike, it is the manufacturer or contractor who qualifies welders against their own procedures, so your previous employer’s WPQ is their record. Codes allow a new employer to accept prior qualification in limited circumstances and with the engineer’s agreement, but it is discretionary and rarely used: expect a weld test on day one, often before any paperwork. The exception worth having is the AWS Certified Welder programme, taken at an accredited test facility, held on a central registry and maintained by a six-monthly continuity submission — not an exemption, but independent evidence rather than a former employer’s letter.

One vocabulary correction that costs people interviews: a CWI is a Certified Welding Inspector, an inspection credential with its own exam, experience and vision requirements. CWIs examine welds; they are not senior welders. Saying you want to “get your CWI” when you mean a better coding tells a foreman you have not worked under a quality system.

Fume, hot work and confined spaces

Hexavalent chromium is produced whenever you weld stainless: OSHA sets a permissible exposure limit of 5 micrograms per cubic metre as an eight-hour average, with an action level of 2.5 above which the employer owes you monitoring, controls and medical surveillance. Hot work on construction sites requires fire prevention measures and a fire watch kept at least half an hour after the work stops. Add permit-required confined space entry and respirator fit testing, and you have your shop-tour questions.

Union, non-union, and what “travel” really means

The organised side of pipe welding runs through the United Association, with the Boilermakers and Ironworkers covering vessels and structural steel: entry is by apprenticeship and work is despatched through a hiring hall. Non-union merit shops hire directly and often reference NCCER credentials instead. Either way, much of the well-paid American welding work is travelling work — shutdowns, turnarounds and new plant construction, measured in weeks, with per diem on top of the rate. Ask four things: the straight-time rate, the guaranteed hours per week, the per diem and whether it is taxable, and who pays the trip home if the job finishes early. A high rate with no guaranteed hours on a shutdown that ends in ten days is not the offer it looks like. American listings on Hirovo are grouped by county: welding jobs in Harris County, Texas, Cook County, Illinois, Los Angeles County and King County, Washington cover four very different industrial bases.

United Kingdom: coded welding, site cards and who actually employs you

What “coded” means

The British trade term for a qualified welder is a coded welder: a welder qualification certificate to a named standard, held by you and normally witnessed by an independent body such as TWI, which is then named on the certificate. Steels fall under BS EN ISO 9606-1 and aluminium under 9606-2, with the same range structure as anywhere else.

ISO is not the only game, though. Petrochemical, refinery and power work frequently specifies ASME Section IX instead, because the plant was built to American codes or the client is a multinational operator, and it is entirely normal for a UK welder to hold both. If an advert names a code you do not hold, that is not automatically a rejection — ask whether they test on entry, because many do. For higher-category pressure equipment, third-party involvement is not optional: welders and procedures must be approved by an independent body, which is exactly why UK employers look at who witnessed your certificate before they look at the date.

Cards: CSCS is not the only one

You will be asked for a card at the gate, and the wrong card is a wasted journey. CSCS covers building sites, issued against a relevant qualification plus the health, safety and environment test. Engineering construction — refineries, power stations, chemical plants, most of the places that hire coded TIG welders — runs on the CCNSG National Safety Passport through ECITB-approved providers, and offshore work adds OPITO BOSIET with an offshore medical. Ask which card the site wants before turning down a job because you hold the other one.

Agency, umbrella and CIS — read the payslip before the rate

A large share of UK coded welding is agency work, and how you are paid changes what the headline rate is worth. Direct PAYE employment gives you holiday, sick pay and notice. Through an umbrella company, the umbrella is your employer and the “assignment rate” quoted to you includes employer National Insurance, the apprenticeship levy and holiday pay, all deducted before your gross pay — so it is not comparable with a PAYE rate. On construction-sector work the Construction Industry Scheme deducts tax at source from subcontractors at 20 per cent when registered and 30 per cent when not, as an advance payment rather than a final one. So ask three things before accepting: is this PAYE, umbrella or CIS; is the figure an assignment rate or my gross pay; and is holiday pay inside the rate. A rate five per cent higher through an umbrella is frequently lower in the hand.

Welding fume is now treated as a carcinogen

Since 2019 the HSE has treated all welding fume, including mild steel fume, as carcinogenic, following the international reclassification. In practice, local exhaust ventilation at the arc is expected for all indoor welding, with respiratory protection where that cannot control exposure — and respiratory protection outdoors too. A UK shop with no extraction and no face-fit testing is not merely unpleasant; it is out of step with what the regulator expects. British listings on Hirovo are grouped by county: welding jobs in Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Birmingham, Lancashire and Derbyshire.

Nigeria: oil and gas sets the standard, and local content decides who hires

Nigerian welding splits in two. General fabrication — structural steel, tanks, gates, workshop work — is largely informal, learned through apprenticeship and paid weekly. Oil and gas fabrication — process piping, vessels, modules and offshore structures, clustered around Port Harcourt and Onne, Warri and Effurun, and the Lagos yards — runs on international codes and pays several times more. The border between them is a weld test.

Local content is about the company, but it reaches you

The Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2010 and the board that administers it, the NCDMB, require operators to give first consideration to Nigerian companies and labour, and contractors register through the industry’s joint qualification system. That is a company-level obligation, not a personal certificate, but it reaches you: contractors must evidence Nigerian workforce numbers and training, so documentation matters — verifiable identity, tax and pension registration, a training record, and certificates naming the body that issued them. Welders who work cash-in-hand find that exact gap keeps them out of the yards.

COREN, NIW, and what the contractor will actually test

Two domestic frameworks are worth knowing. COREN, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, registers engineering practitioners including craftsmen and is increasingly asked for on formal projects. The Nigerian Institute of Welding is the trade’s professional body and connects Nigerian welders to the international qualification framework; training also runs through the Industrial Training Fund and NABTEB trade certificates.

None of that replaces the test. An international EPC contractor will qualify you to ASME Section IX or API 1104 against its own procedures, with the coupon witnessed and usually radiographed, and that record is what gets you through the gate. Find out which code and position the contractor tests to, and practise on that pipe schedule rather than on whatever is in the workshop.

Onshore, offshore, and the documents that unlock the difference

Offshore and marine work pays substantially more than onshore yard work, and is gated by training rather than welding skill: BOSIET with helicopter underwater escape training, a valid offshore medical, often confined space or working-at-height certificates, on a rotation of weeks on and weeks off. If you are already coded and stuck in a yard, those certificates are the cheapest single step up you can buy — from an accredited centre, verified before you pay.

On pay and deductions the anchors are the same as in any Nigerian job. The national minimum wage is ₦70,000 a month under the 2024 amendment. Pension under the Pension Reform Act 2014 has a statutory minimum of 8 per cent from you and 10 per cent from the employer — ask for your RSA PIN and check remittance. National Housing Fund contributions are 2.5 per cent of monthly income above the minimum wage. Employee compensation under the 2010 Act is funded by the employer at 1 per cent of payroll, so nothing for NSITF should come out of your salary. Nigerian listings on Hirovo are grouped by local government area: welding jobs in Port Harcourt, Uvwie, Delta State, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, Ovia South-West, Edo and Gboko, Benue State.

Reading the advert past “must pass a weld test”

• The code tells you the industry. D1.1 structural, Section IX and B31.3 process plant, API 1104 pipeline, D1.6 stainless structural. No code named at all usually means general fabrication.
• The position tells you the difficulty and the money. 3G/4G is plate, 5G is pipe from one side, 6G is everything. “6G on 2 inch schedule 80” means small bore and heavy wall — harder than large-diameter 6G, and paid accordingly.
• The material tells you the process. 304, 316 or 316L means austenitic stainless and almost certainly TIG on the root with a back purge; 6061 or 5083 means aluminium; duplex, Inconel and titanium mean strict heat input and interpass temperature control.
• The inspection tells you the tolerance. “100 per cent RT” means every joint is radiographed and your repair rate counted; “visual and dye penetrant” is looser. High-purity work adds borescope inspection inside the tube.
• “Must pass a weld test” is a fixed step, not a threat. Ask three things beforehand: which code and position, what material and thickness, and whether the test time is paid. On arrival, ask to see the WPS and read it — welders who do that are marked as having worked under a quality system before they strike an arc.

A CV a welding engineer can act on

Whoever reads your application — welding engineer, quality manager or foreman — asks two things: can this person weld to our procedure, and will the radiography come back clean.

• Every coding as a range, in the code’s own language. Process (GTAW, or ISO 141), code (ASME IX, AWS D1.1, ISO 9606-1, API 1104), position (6G, 5G, 4F), material group (P-No. 8 austenitic stainless, P-No. 1 carbon steel, or the ISO group), thickness and diameter range, filler, backing. One line each.
• Dates, both of them. The test date and your most recent continuity signature. A coding with no continuity is treated as lapsed; if yours is, say so and offer to re-test.
• Who witnessed it. The independent body, test house or accredited facility named on the certificate. An in-house certificate from a company nobody has heard of carries far less weight.
• Quality numbers. Radiographic pass rate, repair rate and the volume behind them. “340 joints on 316L process pipe, 100 per cent RT, 2 per cent repair” is the most persuasive line on a welder’s CV, and almost nobody writes it.
• Materials and thicknesses you have actually run. Austenitic and duplex stainless, aluminium, nickel alloys, titanium, carbon steel — with wall thicknesses and pipe sizes, not just names.
• Cards, with expiry dates. CSCS or CCNSG in the UK, OSHA 10 or 30 in the US, BOSIET and offshore medical offshore, plus confined space, working at height and any respirator fit-test record.
• Adjacent skills that cut your employer’s cost. Isometrics and weld maps, fit-up and tacking, pipe fitting, purging and dam setting, dressing to a finish standard, orbital equipment by name, NDT awareness.

If you are moving into welding from general site work, the route in is a fabrication shop or a labouring role alongside a crew — the construction labourer guide covers how those first site jobs are advertised and what the cards cost. Ask to be put on fit-up and tacking; that is where welders are grown.

Where welding jobs are listed on Hirovo

• United States: Harris County · Dallas County · Sacramento County · Maricopa County · Miami-Dade County · all locations in Texas · all US locations
• United Kingdom: Essex · Norfolk · Buckinghamshire · all locations in England · Scotland · all UK locations
• Nigeria: Kosofe, Lagos · Ovia North-East, Edo · Sokoto North · all locations in Delta State · Lagos State · all Nigerian locations

If you also take welding and fabrication work directly from customers, the welding services directory is where people looking for a welder search.

Summary

A welding certificate is a range, not a rank, and it expires quietly. Know your process, code, position, material group, thickness and diameter; keep the continuity signatures current and keep your own copies. TIG is hired separately because it is the answer to stainless, aluminium, thin wall and pipe roots — and a TIG root with a stick or flux-core cap is where the money concentrates in all three markets.

Beyond that, each market asks its own question. In the United States: which code you test to and whether you will travel, because the qualification belongs to the employer and the well-paid work moves. In the United Kingdom: whether your coding is current, who witnessed it, which site card you hold, and whether you are paid PAYE, umbrella or CIS. In Nigeria: whether you can cross from general fabrication into oil and gas — an internationally coded test, proper documentation, and for offshore a BOSIET and a medical. Put your ranges and your radiography numbers at the top of the page, and the weld test stops being an obstacle and becomes the shortest interview you will ever sit.