What should a pipefitter job description include? (free template)

Duties and responsibilities.

Write the description before you advertise the job.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, essential functions are the fundamental duties of the position, not the marginal ones, and a written description prepared before advertising or interviewing is evidence of what is essential — a function can be essential because the job exists to perform it, because few employees are available to share it, or because it is highly specialised.

For a fitter, that list doubles as your screening rubric: it is what you check the hire against in the interview and in the first ninety days.

Copy the right trade list.

BLS describes pipefitters and steamfitters as installing and maintaining pipes that may carry chemicals, acids and gases — mostly in manufacturing, commercial and industrial settings — with steamfitters specializing in systems for liquids or gases at high pressure, and the UA's description of the steamfitter side of the trade adds fabricating, installing, maintaining and repairing high-pressure systems, with welding, rigging and hydrostatic and pneumatic testing in the work.

That is a different list from a plumber's, so a recycled plumbing ad pulls the wrong applicants.

Then make it yours: reading drawings and isometrics, fabricating and installing pipe, making up joints by welding, threading or grooving, hanging pipe and supports, pressure-testing and documenting systems, coordinating with other trades on an active site — the duties that make the job what it is at your shop.

Split the work the way your jobsites actually run, and put the split in the posting.

Commercial or industrial — mechanical rooms and high-rises, or process piping in plants, refineries and manufacturing floors.

Service and repair, new construction and remodels, or both.

A fitter who has spent the year on plant work reads a light-commercial service posting as a different job, and vice versa, so the split is the fastest signal your posting gives about fit.

Title the posting for the work, too: O*NET's sample job titles for the combined occupation include Pipefitter and Pipe Welder, so a posting that is mostly production welding to your procedures should say so.

Hiring a helper is its own posting — put the level in the title, and check your state first: in Minnesota, an unlicensed helper on high-pressure piping may assist only if registered with the Department of Labor and Industry or in an approved apprenticeship and working under a licensed pipefitter.

If seeing the day-to-day definition of the job would help you write it, our pipefitter career guide covers what the work is from the worker's side; this page stays on yours.

Physical demands, stated plainly.

Before a conditional offer you may state the job's physical requirements — lifting a set weight, climbing ladders, working in tight spaces — and ask whether the applicant can meet them.

Putting them in the description does double duty: it tells candidates what the day costs their body, and it gives you compliant wording to screen on later.

Licence and certification requirements — worded exactly.

Never write a generic "must hold a state license" line: there is no national pipefitter licence, and licence names come from each state's or city's own files — a requirement that fits nowhere reads to a working fitter as an employer who has not checked their own market.

Where the trade is licensed, the tiers are real and checkable, and your posting should name the class and the issuing authority the way your state does.

Massachusetts, for example, licenses pipefitters through a state bureau: its journeyman pipefitter licence requires 6,000 hours as a licensed pipefitter apprentice under a Massachusetts master pipefitter plus 450 hours of approved instruction, then an OPSI exam — and from November 9, 2026, journeyman applicants must complete a Bureau-approved 450-hour course and at least 6,000 clock hours as a licensed apprentice under the state's standardized pathway.

Rhode Island requires journeyperson pipefitters to complete a 10,000-hour registered apprenticeship, and Minnesota licenses high-pressure piping — steam and process — statewide as master and journeyworker pipefitters through its Department of Labor and Industry.

Elsewhere the work sits under other licences, so name the one your jobs actually need: mechanical licences that include process piping (but not plumbing) were found in Michigan, Virginia, Oklahoma and New Mexico, and licensing can be city-level — Omaha, for example, licenses steamfitters at the master and journeyman level, each by exam.

Titles do not travel in either direction: New York City's Department of Buildings lists its skilled-trade licences, and "steamfitter" is not among them.

So write the exact licence class your state — or city — requires, with the authority named, or use the template's placeholder and fill it before you post.

If the right candidate may qualify after you hire them, say so: "or ability to obtain within [N] days" is an honest line.

Pre-offer, you may ask applicants about required certifications and licences and ask them to describe or demonstrate how they would do a task — collect licence numbers on the application so you can check each one in the issuing authority's public lookup; our guide to verifying a licence before you hire covers that step.

Welds are the other credential: ask which weld tests and procedures each candidate is qualified on, and collect copies of the qualification records rather than taking "I can weld" at face value.

Verify before you post.

Licensing is often local and it changes.

Confirm the requirements for your jobs with your state licensing board — or the city and county that issues them where licensing is local — and treat this page as employer information, not legal advice.

The full licence map, state by state, is in our guide to how to hire a pipefitter.

Pay and pay-plan disclosure.

Post a real range — the low, the high, and how the plan works.

A number of states now require the range in the posting itself.

As of September 2026, statutes confirmed to require a pay range in job postings include California (employers with 15 or more employees), Colorado, Washington State (15 or more), the District of Columbia, Maryland, Maine (10 or more, since July 29, 2026), Massachusetts (25 or more), Minnesota (30 or more), Illinois (15 or more), New Jersey (10 or more), New York (4 or more), Vermont (5 or more) and Virginia (since July 1, 2026).

Delaware's law is signed but does not take effect until September 2027.

Connecticut and Rhode Island do not require the range in the posting but require the wage range on request, by the time of an offer, or before pay is discussed.

Our research did not confirm posting requirements in Hawaii, and city ordinances were outside this check — there is no closed national list, so verify each state, and each city, where the job is located or where applicants will work.

Several of these laws reach past the number.

Colorado requires a benefits description and how and when to apply in every posting; Illinois lets a hyperlink to a public page carrying the pay scale and benefits satisfy the rule; Minnesota and Washington require a general description of benefits; Washington, D.C. requires the minimum and maximum projected pay in every listing and disclosure of healthcare benefits before the first interview.

If the job is paid on commission, say so in the posting: New York's labor department requires postings to clearly state it, and Vermont goes the other way — an ad for a commission-based job need only disclose that fact and may skip the range.

Name the pay plan itself — hourly, flat rate, commission, salary, or a mix — and resolve the overtime math before the posting, not after.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act follows the pay, not the label: a flat-rate fitter is still owed overtime computed on total job pay divided by hours actually worked; commissions — including on equipment or material sales — count in the regular rate; a bonus or spiff schedule announced in advance is a promised, non-discretionary bonus no matter what you call it; and the one overtime exemption that can fit commission-heavy plans, section 7(i), is narrow and decided case by case for a shop like yours.

Anchor the range to the market, then check it against your metro.

BLS publishes no pipefitter-only wage: its OEWS program reports one combined occupation, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-2152), so every federal figure is the trade band, not a pipefitter-specific number.

Within that SOC, the median wage was $63,800 a year ($30.67 an hour) in May 2025, with the middle half earning between $50,190 and $85,110 — and those figures exclude overtime pay, so a fitter who works heavy call-out hours can earn above them.

Hiring at helper level instead?

The median for Helpers–Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters (SOC 47-3015) was $20.36 an hour, or $42,360 a year, in May 2025.

State-by-state numbers sit on our pipefitter salary page — use them rather than a competitor's ad.

Travel terms belong in the offer, not in folklore: there is no primary federal source for typical per-diem amounts, and union per diem is set in each local's agreement, so write your own per-diem, lodging and mileage terms into the posting when the work is out of town.

Schedule, on-call, truck and tools.

These lines filter more fitters than any perk, so state each one instead of letting the new hire discover it.

Schedule: give the working days and hours and the honest shape of the year — industrial work runs to shutdowns and turnaround windows, commercial construction to the general contractor's schedule — so if the busy season means six-day weeks of overtime, say that here.

On-call: say whether there is a rotation, how often it lands on one fitter, and how after-hours call-outs are paid, with that pay treatment in the pay section rather than nowhere.

Truck and tools: say whether the shop provides a vehicle — and whether it goes home — or whether the crew meets at the shop and rides out together.

Say what the company supplies — the threading and grooving machines, welding equipment and consumables, the large and specialty tools — and what the fitter is expected to bring, such as hand tools.

If you fund weld tests, certification fees or licence renewals, name it; fitters read paid renewals as a signal you run a legitimate shop.

Good fitters read postings the way managers wish candidates read resumes: fast, and looking for reasons to stop.

The fastest reasons to stop are all fixable in the copy.

No pay range.

Fitters shop jobs on pay, and a posting that hides the number reads as a number worth hiding.

In the states listed above it is also a legal exposure, not just a conversion problem.

A licence line that fits nowhere.

A generic "state pipefitter licence required" tells a working fitter you have not checked your own market — and in much of the country there is no state pipefitter licence to name in the first place, because the work sits under plumbing or mechanical licences or city rules.

Name the licence, the class and the issuing authority, or state plainly that you will help the right candidate obtain it.

Age-coded wording.

Terms like "young", "recent college graduate", "boy" or "girl" violate age-discrimination rules unless a statutory exception applies, and help-wanted ads generally may not show a preference for, or discourage, applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age 40 or older, disability or genetic information.

Describe the work, not the person you imagine doing it.

Questions the posting cannot ask.

Stating the physical demands and asking whether the applicant can meet them is allowed.

Asking about past job injuries or workers' compensation history before an offer is not — keep those questions out of the posting, the application form and the phone screen.

Referral-only hiring.

Recruiting mainly by word of mouth through a mostly one-group workforce can itself be discriminatory if almost all hires come from that group.

Post the job publicly.

Small-shop assumptions.

Federal EEO laws cover private employers with 15 or more employees and the age law those with 20 or more, but state laws often cover smaller shops, so check yours.

Federal contractors must include the equal-consideration tagline in job ads; many other employers add an equal-opportunity line voluntarily.

Screening rules you have not checked.

Background-check, ban-the-box and paid-sick-leave rules vary by state and city and were not verified state by state in our research — confirm the rules where you hire before you screen.

Eligibility verification, before the first day.

While applications come in, check whether your state mandates E-Verify.

Florida and North Carolina require private employers with 25 or more employees to use it for new hires; South Carolina requires every private employer to verify every new employee within three business days; and Arizona, Alabama and Mississippi require every employer to use it.

The thresholds reported for Georgia, Tennessee and Utah were not verified in our research, so check your state's current rule directly.

Federal contractors covered by the FAR E-Verify clause must enroll within 30 days of contract award.

With the copy fixed, put the posting where fitters actually look: browse current pipefitter jobs to see what candidates see on the board.

Before you publish, run the wording past our guide to how to write a job ad for HVAC technicians — the ad-writing rules hold trade-wide — and when the replies come in, our guide to how to hire a pipefitter covers sourcing, screening, pay and the first 90 days.

This page is employer career information, not legal advice. Confirm licence requirements with the issuing board — the state, or the city and county where licensing is local — pay-posting rules with each state labor department, and employment-law questions with an employment attorney.