The Datum Report

Occupation 5236 · Skilled trades occupations

Rail and rolling stock builders and repairers

Half of full-time rail and rolling stock builders and repairers in the UK earn more than £64,322 a year, and half earn less.

Rail and rolling stock builders and repairers erect, fit, assemble and repair rolling stock parts and sub-assemblies, and test and adjust new engines for trains.

How people enter it

Entrants usually possess GCSEs/S grades or a BTEC/SQA award. Apprenticeships at level 3 and other vocational qualifications at level 2 and 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 make train engines
• examines rolling stock for defects, removes, replaces and repairs faulty parts
• inspects and tests new and repaired machinery for conformity with standards and specifications
• oils and greases train engines
• maintains record of repairs and maintenance carried out

Also called

Coach repairer (railways) · Mechanical fitter (railway and rolling stock) · Railway engineer · Rolling stock technician · Service engineer (railway, rolling stock maintenance)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for rail and rolling stock builders and repairers, 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. 4 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

Aircraft maintenance and related trades · Boat and ship builders and repairers · Vehicle body builders and repairers · Vehicle paint technicians · Vehicle technicians, mechanics and electricians