The Datum Report

Occupation 5212 · Skilled trades occupations

Metal plate workers, smiths, moulders and related occupations

Half of full-time metal plate workers, smiths, moulders and related occupations in the UK earn more than £37,058 a year, and half earn less.

Metal plate workers, smiths, moulders and related occupations mark off, drill, shape, position, rivet and seal metal plates and girders to form structures and frameworks operate power hammers and presses to shape heated metal to requirements and to make and repair a variety of metal articles and make moulds and cores for casting metal and pour or inject molten metal into dies.

How people enter it

Entrants typically possess GCSEs/S grades. Training is usually via apprenticeship including practical experience and technical training. NVQs at levels 2 and 3 are available.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to determine operational requirements
• marks out metal plate with guidelines and reference points and cuts metal plate using hand or machine tools
• uses machine tools to bend, curve, punch, drill and straighten metal plate as required
• uses hydraulic jacks to position and align metal platework or frame for welding and bolting and rivets together metal plate and girders
• creates mould units out of sand, loam or plaster by hand or machine and fits cores into mould to form hollow parts in casting
• seals seams with caulking compound, smooths welds, fixes metal doors, metal collars, portholes, tank and hatch covers and performs other metal plate finishing tasks using a variety of hand and power tools
• heats metal for forging and positions heated metal on anvil or other work surface
• operates press or hammer and repositions workpiece between strokes
• uses forging tools to shape and cut metal and bends or shapes metal by hand forging methods using hammers, punches, drifts and other hand tools
• tempers and hardens forged pieces, as required, by quenching in oil or water
• fits and secures horses shoes
• scoops molten metal from furnace into die or die casting machine

Also called

Boiler maker · Core Maker (metal trades) · Die Caster · Chain repairer · Farrier · Moulder and coremaker · Pewtersmith · Pipe Maker (foundry) · Steel presser

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for metal plate workers, smiths, moulders and related occupations, 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

Pipe fitters · Sheet metal workers · Welding trades