A perspective on sourcing skilled welders for Poland and the Netherlands.

Every crane on a Rotterdam quay, every steel frame going up around Warsaw, every wind-turbine monopile and every kilometre of pipeline has one thing in common: at some point, a welder had to join the metal. It is one of the oldest industrial trades and, in 2026, one of the scarcest. As we prepare a dedicated sourcing campaign to bring skilled welders into Poland and the Netherlands, it is worth stepping back and looking at the picture honestly — where the shortage really bites, where the talent actually is, and why an experienced welder in Chennai, Bogotá or Cebu would seriously consider packing up for a contract in Europe.

A shortage that is structural, not cyclical

The welder gap is not a blip that will correct itself once the economy turns. It is baked into demographics. The American Welding Society has estimated the U.S. market alone faced a shortfall of roughly 400,000 skilled welders by 2025, with an ongoing chronic deficit on the order of tens of thousands of workers a year. The dynamic behind it is the same across the developed world: the workforce is ageing — the average welder is around 55 — and only about one new welder enters the trade for every two who retire. Industry commentators have taken to calling it the “silver tsunami.”

Layer onto that a wave of demand. Infrastructure programmes, shipbuilding, the energy transition, oil and gas maintenance, and the general renewal of ageing plant are all welding-intensive. The result is a market that is the opposite of oversaturated. It desperately needs certified people, and it will keep needing them for the rest of this decade.

Europe is squarely inside this squeeze:

  • The Netherlands is running one of the tightest labour markets in the EU. Dutch employers reported struggling to fill roughly 45% of vacancies in 2025, with technical trades among the hardest to staff. As the country pushes to build hundreds of thousands of new homes by 2030, demand for skilled trades like welders has been described as a “forever shortage.” Employers are responding with higher starting wages, quicker permanent contracts, and a willingness to pay for safety certifications such as the VCA.
  • Poland combines record-low unemployment (around 3–4%) with persistent structural shortages. The government has formally listed welders among the deficit occupations, and its 2025–2030 labour strategy assumes foreign workers will need to make up at least 12% of the workforce by 2030. Recent reforms have also made it easier to recognise qualifications through work experience rather than only formal diplomas — a meaningful detail for tradespeople.

In short, both of our target markets are not just short of welders; they have publicly admitted it and are reshaping their immigration and employment rules around that reality.

Not all welding is the same: the processes that matter

When employers say “we need welders,” they rarely mean it generically. The process and the position a welder is certified in largely determine where they can work and what they earn. The processes in strongest global demand in 2026 are:

  • MIG/MAG (GMAW — Gas Metal Arc Welding). The workhorse of manufacturing and fabrication. Versatile, fast, and used everywhere from automotive lines to structural steel. In continental Europe the term MAG (active gas) is common; it is the same GMAW family. This is the volume trade — the bulk of production welding in Poland and the Netherlands sits here.
  • TIG (GTAW — Gas Tungsten Arc Welding). The precision trade. In demand for stainless steel process piping, pressure vessels, aerospace, and anything where weld quality is critical. TIG-qualified welders are consistently harder to find and better paid.
  • Stick / Arc (SMAW). Still essential for construction, pipelines and fieldwork where portability beats finesse. Common in developing regions, which makes it a natural entry qualification for many overseas candidates.
  • Flux-Cored (FCAW). Expanding fast in shipbuilding and heavy industry — highly relevant to the Dutch maritime and offshore sectors.

Two further distinctions decide a welder’s real market value:

  • Position certification (1G to 6G). The 6G position — welding a fixed pipe at a 45° incline — is the benchmark for pipe welders. A verified 6G welder who can lay X-ray-quality root passes is a genuinely global professional.
  • Codes and standards. ISO and ASME codes, and the ability to weld to a specific Welding Procedure Specification (WPS), are what separate a paper certificate from a deployable hire.

For our campaign this matters practically: a candidate’s ticket is only useful if it maps to the WPS our client employers actually run. The screening has to be process- and position-specific, ideally with a practical trade test on the same wire, gas and base material the job requires — not just a certificate on file.

Where the welders actually are

Skilled welders are produced in large numbers in several parts of the world, generally in countries with strong vocational-training systems and established traditions of working abroad.

India

The single deepest pool. India’s ITI (Industrial Training Institute) system produces welders grounded in fundamentals, metallurgy and safety, and many then gain export-grade experience on projects for Gulf clients, offshore platforms, or large domestic fabrication houses. Internationally recognised qualification routes (including the IIW/International Welder framework administered in India) add portability. India has historically had a low emigration rate among its educated population relative to its size, but for tradespeople specifically, working abroad — long in the Gulf, increasingly in Europe — is a well-worn and aspirational path.

The Gulf as an experience hub, not just a destination

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are worth understanding as a transit and proving ground rather than only a rival buyer. Mega-projects such as NEOM and Red Sea developments have drawn in Indian, Filipino, Nepali and Bangladeshi welders on multi-year contracts. That means a large population of tradespeople already in the Gulf have real overseas project experience, exposure to international standards, and — crucially — no illusions about relocating for work. For a European campaign, this is fertile ground.

The Philippines

A country that has effectively institutionalised skilled labour export through decades of OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) policy, with government machinery built around deployment. Filipino welders staff construction and shipbuilding across the Gulf and beyond, generally bring solid working English, and are accustomed to long-term contracts abroad. Domestic welder pay is modest — a median in the order of ~$10,000 a year — which is a large part of why the wage differential abroad is so compelling.

Colombia and Latin America

A less crowded, increasingly interesting source region. Colombia has a real industrial and oil-and-gas fabrication base, produces trained welders, and sits in a wage environment where a European contract represents a substantial step up. For Poland and the Netherlands, Latin American candidates can offer a strong work ethic, cultural adaptability, and — relative to more heavily worked Asian corridors — less competition from other recruiters. The trade-off is language: English or Polish/Dutch onboarding support becomes more important.

Others worth noting

Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam all feed the same international welder pipelines and appear repeatedly in Gulf and European sourcing. Each has its own certification quirks and diaspora patterns.

Why a good welder leaves home

It is easy to reduce this to “money,” but the honest answer is a bundle of motives, and understanding them is what makes a campaign land.

  • The wage differential is real and large. A welder earning a modest domestic wage in India, the Philippines or Colombia can multiply their take-home pay on a European contract. In Poland, welders typically earn somewhere in the region of PLN 4,000–7,000 net per month depending on process, position and overtime — well above what the same skill commands in most source countries, and the Netherlands sits higher still.
  • Stability and legality. Both target countries offer regulated, contract-based employment with clear permit routes. After stints in less predictable markets, a compliant European contract with a proper employment relationship is a genuine draw.
  • Career progression and standards. Working to ISO/ASME codes on European projects is a CV asset that raises a welder’s value for the rest of their career.
  • Remittances and family. For many candidates, the entire calculation is about supporting family at home. Remittance-driven migration is the backbone of economies like the Philippines, and welders are very much part of that flow.
  • A path, not a dead end. Poland’s recognition of experience-based qualifications and the Netherlands’ willingness to convert good workers onto permanent contracts mean the first contract can become a longer-term future.

It is worth being straight about the trade-offs too: time away from family, adapting to Polish or Dutch winters and workplace culture, language barriers, and the bureaucracy of permits. A responsible campaign names these honestly and helps candidates through them, rather than overselling. Candidates who arrive with realistic expectations stay — and word of mouth in these communities is everything.

Our approach: building this on the ground, not from a spreadsheet

This is where the real work sits, and where I’ll be spending my time over the coming months. Sourcing welders well is not a job-board exercise. It means building local partnerships in the source markets themselves — training institutes, testing centres, and trusted recruitment partners in places like India, the UAE, Colombia and the Philippines — so that we can:

  1. Reach genuine tradespeople through people who know their communities, rather than scraping applications and hoping.
  2. Verify skills at source with practical trade tests and certification checks — matched to the actual WPS our client employers run — before anyone books a flight.
  3. Handle the compliance properly, from work permits to attestation of documents, so the process is legal and transparent on both ends.
  4. Support the human side — onboarding, language, accommodation, the first difficult weeks — because a welder who feels looked after is a welder who stays, and who tells their friends.

That partner network is exactly what I’ll be developing as this campaign gets underway, and it is the difference between filling a vacancy once and building a reliable, repeatable pipeline of skilled people into Poland and the Netherlands.

If you are an employer in Poland or the Netherlands facing a welder shortage — or a training centre or recruitment partner in a source market who wants to work with us — this is precisely the kind of matching HR Code was built for. Get in touch and let’s talk.

Sources consulted

  • American Welding Society / industry analyses on the welder shortage and “silver tsunami” (GAWDA Media, Novarc, Welding Online Academy, 2025–26)
  • Welding market and process-demand overviews (MarketDataForecast, Fortune Business Insights, Weld Wars, 2025–26)
  • Netherlands labour market and trades shortage (IamExpat / UWV data, Robin.jobs, Expatica, 2025–26)
  • Poland labour market, deficit-occupation lists and 2026 permit rules (Careers in Poland, Brainsource, Kono, time2work, AtoZ Serwis Plus, 2025–26)
  • Welder source-market and recruitment practice (AJEETS, Mahad, Global Workforce HR, IIW India, 2025–26)
  • Philippines / OFW and Colombia–Latin America labour export context (ILO, World Bank, Migration Policy Institute, Global Salary Guide, 2015–2026)

Figures on shortages, wages and rules reflect publicly available sources as of mid-2026 and vary by region, employer and exchange rate; confirm current permit thresholds and certification requirements before acting on them.