Also called: Neon Glass Bender, Sign Glassworker
Heats and bends glass tubes into glowing neon signs and art.
You heat a glass tube over ribbon burners until it softens, then bend it to follow lines on a paper pattern, blowing gently to keep it round. After filling it with neon or argon gas, you plug it in and it lights up glowing red or blue.
Estimated; many benders are self-employed artists.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Apprenticeship, about 1 year after high school. Learned through apprenticeship or neon-bending classes.
Ways in: Apprenticeship, Self-taught, Trade school. Training cost: Under $15k.
Majors to look at: Neon Art (workshop), Glass Art.
Growing slowly. No BLS projection; LED replaced much neon, but handmade neon is having a comeback.
Low risk for 10 years. Neon is a small hand-craft niche competing with LED, but skilled benders are very rare.
Classes: Art, Physics, Chemistry.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.