The Datum Report

Occupation 2481 · Professional occupations

Quality control and planning engineers

Half of full-time quality control and planning engineers in the UK earn more than £43,592 a year, and half earn less.

Quality control and planning engineers plan production schedules, work sequences, and manufacturing and processing procedures to ensure accuracy, quality and reliability.

How people enter it

Quality control and planning engineers usually possess an accredited university degree. After qualifying, periods of appropriate training and experience are required before membership of a chartered engineering institution is achieved. 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

• devises inspection, testing and evaluation methods for bought-in materials, components, semi-finished and finished products
• ensures accuracy of machines, jigs, fixtures, gauges and other manufacturing and testing equipment
• prepares work flow charts for individual departments and compiles detailed instructions on processes, work methods and quality and safety standards for workers
• analyses plans, drawings, specifications and safety, quality, accuracy, reliability and contractual requirements
• prepares plan of sequence of operations and completion dates for each phase of production or processing
• oversees effective implementation of adopted processes, schedules and procedures

Also called

Planning engineer · Quality assurance engineer · Quality control officer (professional) · Quality engineer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for quality control and planning 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

Environmental health professionals · Quality assurance and regulatory professionals