The Datum Report

Occupation 4135 · Administrative and secretarial occupations

Library clerks and assistants

Half of full-time library clerks and assistants in the UK earn more than £28,134 a year, and half earn less.

Library clerks and assistants classify, sort and file publications, documents, audio-visual and computerised material in libraries and offices.

How people enter it

There are no minimum academic requirements, although entrants usually possess GCSEs/S grades or A-levels/H grades. Training is usually provided on-the-job. NVQs/ SVQs in Information and Library Services are available at levels 2 and 3.

What the work involves

• sorts, catalogues and maintains library records
• locates and retrieves material on request for borrowers
• issues library material and records date of issue/ due date for return
• classifies, labels and indexes new books
• performs simple repairs on old books

Also called

Archives assistant (library) · Information assistant (library) · Learning resource assistant · Library assistant · Library clerk · Library supervisor

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for library clerks and assistants, 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. 8 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

Human resources administrative occupations · Pensions and insurance clerks and assistants · Records clerks and assistants · Stock control clerks and assistants · Transport and distribution clerks and assistants