The Datum Report

Occupation 3553 · Associate professional occupations

Merchandisers

Half of full-time merchandisers in the UK earn more than £32,155 a year, and half earn less.

Merchandisers ensure that stores are supplied with goods, liaise with suppliers, decide on pricing and promotions and advise retailers on the optimum display of merchandise.

How people enter it

Most entrants possess a degree or equivalent qualification, although there are no formal academic requirements and entry is also possible with a BTEC/SQA award, A levels/H grades, or HNC/HND.

What the work involves

• monitors stock levels and manages the movement of goods
• predicts future demand and negotiates the supply and price of goods to ensure stores are stocked
• analyses customer requirements, the needs of individual stores and the organisation, and works with suppliers to develop a product range
• supplies information about products to the retailer and sales staff
• consults with advertising and sales staff and advises retailers on the optimal display of a product and of any promotions
• provides feedback about sales to senior managers

Also called

Demand planner · Merchandiser · Sales merchandiser · Supply chain analyst

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for merchandisers, 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. 2 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

Advertising and marketing associate professionals · Business sales executives · Buyers and procurement officers · Estate agents and auctioneers · Events managers and organisers · Sales accounts and business development managers