Boilermaker

Could you work with heavy-duty machinery and solve heavy-duty problems? Do you like precise work? Are you good with your hands? Do you enjoy travel and working outdoors? Do you crave excitement and variety? Do you like working as part of a team? Then, you could become a boilermaker!

What the work is like

Boilermakers build, install, maintain and repair tanks, boilers, and other heavy-metal structures. They are employed in building manufacturing and power generation plants, in shipbuilding, and on other industrial projects. Boilermakers work mostly in the heavy industrial, and institutional and commercial construction sectors.

Your duties

Boilermakers may specialize in rigging and hoisting, preparation and layout, or welding.

Depending on your speciality, your duties may include:

• Building and installing boilers
• Laying out plate or sheet steel and marking cuts, bends and welds
• Fitting and welding metal sections together
• Maintaining and repairing boilers
• Directing crane operators during installation or repair of boilers
• Reading and interpreting blueprints

Work conditions

The standard work week for boilermakers is 40 hours (8 hours a day, 5 days a week). As with many careers in construction, there are peak periods that will require you to work overtime. The number of additional hours you work each week depends on the construction sector and region you work in, and will vary from one job to the next.

As a boilermaker, you may work indoors or outdoors, usually on a construction site and with a team of other construction professionals. The job is physically demanding and often involves working with heavy machinery or power tools at heights.

As with all careers in the construction industry, safety is the top priority. Boilermakers are trained to work safely, and wear special equipment to protect themselves from injury.

Essential skills

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) has identified nine essential skills that are necessary to succeed in the workplace:

• Reading text—extracting information from written material
• Document use—reading and interpreting documents to extract information
• Numeracy—working with numbers to perform calculations
• Writing—writing text in documents and on the computer
• Oral communication—conveying or exchanging information verbally
• Working with others—interacting with co-workers to get the job done
• Continuous learning—continuing to learn on the job
• Thinking skills
  • Problem solving—coming up with solutions to challenges
  • Decision making—making a choice among options
  • Critical thinking—analyzing a situation and making an assessment
  • Job task planning and organizing—working independently to plan and organize daily tasks
  • Significant use of memory—performing tasks that call upon greater memory use than most jobs
  • Finding information—locating information from a variety of sources, including text, people, computerized databases or information systems
• Computer skills—working with computers to operate machinery or to input/extract information

These skills provide the foundation for learning all other skills and are applicable to most construction careers. Best of all, you can learn and improve on these skills in school, on the job, and during your everyday life.

The most important Essential Skills for boilermakers are:

• Document use—reading and interpreting documents to extract information
• Numeracy—working with numbers to perform calculations
• Oral communication—conveying or exchanging information verbally

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is one way of starting out in the construction industry. It involves both classroom studies and on-the-job training under the supervision of a certified boilermaker, called a journeyperson.

As an apprentice, you earn while you learn and are paid by the hour while working on the job site. Wages start at about 60% of a journeyperson’s hourly rate and increase during your apprenticeship, until you reach the full rate. Requirements for boilermaker apprenticeship programs vary across Canada. In most provinces and territories, you must be at least 18 years old and have a Grade 12 education, or equivalent, to enter a boilermaker apprenticeship program. You may find it helpful to have courses in English and mathematics. 

Some provinces and territories offer secondary school apprenticeship programs that allow high school students to work towards a career as a boilermaker.

Program length

Boilermaker apprenticeship programs vary across Canada, but generally involve three 12-month periods, including at least 4,500 hours of on-the-job training, four 6-week blocks of technical training, and a final certificate examination.

Related work experience or completion of a boilermaker program at a college or technical institute can reduce the time required to complete your apprenticeship.

Certification

Boilermaker certification is required in Alberta and Québec, and is available but voluntary in all other provinces and territories. Even where certification is voluntary, it is still recommended. Certification tells employers and other workers that you are a skilled professional. It also helps you get jobs.

To be certified as a boilermaker, you usually need to complete a three- to four-year apprenticeship program. Once you successfully complete the on-the-job training, technical training and examinations required by the program, you are awarded a journeyperson certificate.

If you have over four years of on-the-job experience and some high school, college or industry courses in boilermaking, you may be eligible for boilermaker certification in some provinces and territories.

As a certified boilermaker you may attempt the Interprovincial Exam to qualify for the Interprovincial Standards’ Red Seal. With a Red Seal, you can work as a boilermaker anywhere in Canada.

To keep your skills current, you have to keep up with new technological developments by reading and talking with other boilermakers.

Where to study in British Columbia

In addition to the Canadian schools listed below, many employer and labour organizations offer training.

British Columbia Institute of Technology

Salary ranges

TYPICAL WORK WEEK/YEAR *

In addition to their hourly rate, many construction workers receive statutory holiday and vacation pay. Depending on the contract, you may also receive benefits such as group insurance for health, dental and vision care, retirement packages, and training benefits up to 30% of your hourly rate. If you are self-employed, it’s up to you to arrange your own benefits.

* Wages vary across Canada, among labour organization locals and among open-shop construction contractors.

** Most construction work involves overtime, so your annual salary will vary depending on the number of hours you work. The salary range listed above represents the annual salary range for full-time journeyperson boilermakers across Canada, based on a 40-hour work week, without taking overtime into account.