The Datum Report

Occupation 2125 · Professional occupations

Production and process engineers

Half of full-time production and process engineers in the UK earn more than £47,946 a year, and half earn less.

Production and process engineers advise on and direct technical aspects of production programmes to ensure cost-effectiveness and efficiency. This unit group incorporates: planning and quality control engineers who plan production schedules, work sequences, and manufacturing and processing procedures to ensure accuracy, quality and reliability; and chemical engineers who undertake research on commercial scale chemical processes and processed products, design and provide specifications and direct the construction, operation, maintenance and repair of chemical plants and control systems.

How people enter it

Production and process engineers usually possess an accredited university degree. After qualifying, periods of appropriate training and experience are required before membership of a chartered engineering institution. Incorporated engineers possess an accredited university degree, BTEC/SQA award or an apprenticeship leading to an NVQ/SVQ at level 4. All routes are followed by periods of appropriate training and relevant experience.

What the work involves

• studies existing and alternative production methods, regarding work flow, plant layout, types of machinery and cost
• recommends optimum equipment and layout and prepares drawings and specifications
• devises and implements production control methods to monitor operational efficiency
• investigates and eliminates potential hazards and bottlenecks in production
• advises management on and ensures effective implementation of new production methods, techniques and equipment
• liaises with materials buying, storing and controlling departments to ensure a steady flow of supplies
• undertakes research and develops processes to achieve physical and/or chemical change for oil, pharmaceutical, synthetic, plastic, food and other products
• designs, controls and constructs process plants to manufacture products

Also called

Chemical engineer · Industrial engineer · Pharmaceutical engineer · Process engineer · Production consultant · Production engineer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for production and process engineers, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 11 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Aerospace engineers · Civil engineers · Electrical engineers · Electronics engineers (professional) · Engineering professionals n.e.c. · Engineering project managers and project engineers · Mechanical engineers (professional)