The Datum Report

Occupation 5221 · Skilled trades occupations

Metal machining setters and setter-operators

Half of full-time metal machining setters and setter-operators in the UK earn more than £35,718 a year, and half earn less.

Metal machining setters and setter-operators operate machines to drill, bore, grind, cut, mill or otherwise shape metal workpieces.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic requirements although some employers may require GCSEs/S grades. Engineering apprenticeships, BTEC and City and Guilds qualifications are available together with on-the-job training. NVQs/ SVQs at level 2 and 3 are available.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to determine appropriate method, sequence of operations and machine setting
• selects and fixes work-holding devices and appropriate cutting, shaping, grinding and/or forming tools
• sets machine controls for rotation speeds, depth of cut and stroke, and adjusts machine table, stops and guides
• operates automatic or manual controls to feed tool to workpiece or vice versa and checks accuracy of machining
• repositions workpiece, changes tools and resets machine as necessary during production run
• instructs operators on the safe and correct method of operation of the machine

Also called

CNC machinist · CNC programmer · Centre lathe turner · Miller (metal trades) · Tool setter · Turner

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for metal machining setters and setter-operators, 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

Air-conditioning and refrigeration installers and repairers · Metal working production and maintenance fitters and technicians · Precision instrument makers and repairers · Tool makers, tool fitters and markers-out