The Datum Report

Occupation 5223 · Skilled trades occupations

Metal working production and maintenance fitters and technicians

Half of full-time metal working production and maintenance fitters and technicians in the UK earn more than £40,760 a year, and half earn less.

Metal working production and maintenance fitters and technicians erect, install and repair electrical and mechanical plant and industrial machinery, fit and assemble parts and sub-assemblies in the manufacture of metal products and test and adjust new motor vehicles and engines.

How people enter it

Entrants usually possess GCSEs/S grades or a BTEC/SQA award. Apprenticeships in Engineering Maintenance at NVQ/SVQ level 3 are available.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to determine appropriate methods and sequence of operations
• fits and assembles parts and/or metal sub-assemblies to fine tolerances to make marine engines, prototype metal products, agricultural machinery and machine tools
• fits and assembles, other than to fine tolerances, prepared parts and sub-assemblies to make motor vehicles, printing and agricultural machinery, orthopaedic appliances and other metal goods
• examines operation of, and makes adjustments to internal combustion engines and motor vehicles
• erects, installs, repairs and services plant and industrial machinery, including railway stock, textile machines, coin operated machines, locks, sewing machines, bicycles and gas and oil appliances

Also called

Agricultural engineer · Bench fitter · Engineering machinist · Fabricator · Installation engineer · Maintenance fitter · Mechanical engineer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for metal working production and maintenance fitters and 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. 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 machining setters and setter-operators · Precision instrument makers and repairers · Tool makers, tool fitters and markers-out