What the role really costs to employ, what the market is paying, and which licences actually gate it. Written for the employer doing the hiring.
This page is about taking a boilermaker onto your payroll, not about booking one for a job. A boilermaker on the award floor of $29.45 an hour costs about $67,275.75 a year once superannuation, leave loading and workers compensation are counted, against a wage of $58,193.20. That is roughly 15.6 per cent on top.
Award floor
$29.45
Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award (MA000010), effective 1 July 2026
Market band
$100,000 to $120,000
National advertised range, SEEK, refreshed 1 July 2026
Real annual cost
$67,275.75
At the award floor, full time, South Australian on-costs
The wage is the smallest honest answer. Worked at the award floor, full time, 38 hours a week:
| Line | How it is worked out | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Wages | $29.45 x 38 hours x 52 weeks | $58,193.20 |
| Annual leave loading | 17.5% of four weeks' wages | $783.37 |
| Superannuation | 12% of wages plus loading | $7,077.19 |
| Workers compensation | 1.85% of wages, loading and super | $1,221.99 |
| Real annual cost | Against a $58,193.20 wage | $67,275.75 |
Award floor from the Fair Work P.A.C.T summary for the Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award (MA000010), effective 1 July 2026. Superannuation 12 per cent for 2026-27, ATO. Leave loading 17.5 per cent of four weeks, Fair Work Ombudsman. Workers compensation 1.85 per cent, ReturnToWorkSA scheme average, which varies by state and industry so use your own insurer's rate. Payroll tax is excluded because most employers sit below the threshold. Checked 5 August 2026. Full method on what an employee really costs.
That is the floor, not the offer. The market band above is what the role is actually advertised at, and an offer pitched near the legal minimum is the one experienced people scroll past. The full rate detail for this role has the classification ladder.
No occupational licence. What an employer should be asking about instead is fabrication capability: reading and setting out from drawings, template and pattern development, marking off, and the ability to take a plate or section from a shop detail through to a finished assembly that fits. Pressure equipment work carries its own certification regime again. Rigging and dogging tickets, issued by the state work health and safety regulator, come up constantly on heavy fabrication because the work involves lifting what has just been built. Confined space and working at heights are site requirements, and a white card applies on construction.
The award gives a boilermaker the same C10 classification and the same legal minimum as a welder. The interesting fact about this role is therefore not the floor but the distance between the floor and the market, which is wider here than on almost any other trade we hold.
| Classification | Hourly floor | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| C13 engineering/manufacturing employee level II | $26.44 | Base rate |
| C11 level IV | $27.97 | Base rate |
| C10 tradesperson level I | $29.45 | Base rate |
| C9 tradesperson level II | $30.38 | Base rate |
| C8 tradesperson special class level I | $31.30 | Base rate |
| C7 tradesperson special class level II | $32.13 | Base rate |
| C6 advanced engineering tradesperson level I | $33.77 | Base rate |
| C5 advanced engineering tradesperson level II | $34.46 | Base rate |
Manufacturing and Associated Industries and Occupations Award (MA000010), adult full-time minimums effective 1 July 2026, from the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guides. Casual loading of 25 per cent sits on top. Which classification applies is decided by the work actually performed, not by the job title.
Widening or narrowing the brief by one role often does more for a stalled vacancy than raising the rate. The nearest neighbours:
Heavy fabrication demand arrives in lumps rather than smoothly, because it is tied to mining, resources and infrastructure project cycles and to shutdown windows. When a large project or a shutdown starts nearby, the available pool empties within weeks and does not refill until the work finishes. An employer competing against a shutdown is competing against overtime and away allowances, not against another workshop rate.
On the Jobs and Skills Australia 2025 Occupation Shortage List this role appears as 322311 Metal Fabricator, in shortage nationally and in every state and territory. The Australian Bureau of Statistics lists boilermaker and welder as a specialisation of the metal fabricator occupation. That is the national picture, not a claim about your town, and it is the reason an advertisement alone often does not produce a shortlist.
Setting the offer off the award. A boilermaker who sees a rate anywhere near the C10 floor concludes the employer does not understand the trade and does not apply. The second is using boilermaker and welder interchangeably in the advertisement when the fabrication content of the role is what actually decides who is suitable. The third is underestimating how much shutdown and project work competes for the same people.
Four checks before a name reaches you: licences verified, screened against your brief, history checked, rate locked. If one step fails, the name never reaches you. The whole process is written out here, including where reference checks actually sit.
You pay nothing until your hire starts, and if they leave inside the first 90 days we replace them free.
At the award floor of $29.45 an hour, about $67,275.75 a year once superannuation, leave loading and workers compensation are added, against a wage of $58,193.20. That is roughly 15.6 per cent on top of the wage. Payroll tax is excluded because most employers sit below the threshold.
The national advertised band is $100,000 to $120,000. The award floor of $29.45 is the legal minimum, not the market. An offer pitched near the floor is the most common reason a vacancy in this trade stays open.
C10 tradesperson level I under the Manufacturing Award, which is the same classification as a welder. It is a base rate, so allowances are paid on top.
Heavy fabrication demand concentrates around projects and shutdowns, and the qualified pool is small. That gap between the legal floor and the market is the largest we hold on any trade.
In the official occupation classification, boilermaker is listed as a specialisation of metal fabricator. In practice, employers use the terms to mean somewhat different things, which is why the advertisement needs to describe the work.