The Datum Report

Occupation 3116 · Associate professional occupations

Planning, process and production technicians

Half of full-time planning, process and production technicians in the UK earn more than £36,895 a year, and half earn less.

Planning, process and production technicians perform a variety of technical support functions to assist production, process and planning engineers with production programmes and schedules and with manufacturing and processing procedures in order to ensure accuracy, cost-effectiveness and efficiency

How people enter it

Entrants to training usually possess GCSEs/S grades. Vocational training consists either of full-time study for a BTEC/SQA National award followed by two years on-the-job training, or an apprenticeship leading to an NVQ/SVQ at level 3.

What the work involves

• supports planning and production engineers in assessing existing and alternative production methods
• works from, and helps implement, professional engineers’ drawings and specifications for equipment and layout, and helps implement modifications required for existing plant machinery/layout
• works with engineers on production control methods to monitor operational efficiency and helps to eliminate potential hazards and bottlenecks in production
• liaises with materials buying, storing and controlling departments to ensure a steady flow of supplies
• supports professional engineers in reviewing safety, quality, accuracy, reliability and contractual requirements
• supports implementation of plans of sequence of operations and completion dates for each phase of production or processing
• ensures implementation of inspection, testing and evaluation methods for bought-in materials, components, semi-finished and finished products
• plans and coordinates maintenance activities involved in manufacturing and processing procedures
• ensures accuracy of manufacturing and testing equipment
• ensures effective completion and implementation of detailed instructions on processes, work methods and quality and safety standards for workers
• reviews and analyses production data
• plans the cost impact and staff resources for projects

Also called

Process technician · Production controller · Production planner · Production technician

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for planning, process and production technicians, 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. 9 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

Building and civil engineering technicians · Electrical and electronics technicians · Engineering technicians · Laboratory technicians · Quality assurance technicians · Science, engineering and production technicians n.e.c.