The Datum Report

Occupation 5316 · Skilled trades occupations

Carpenters and joiners

Half of full-time carpenters and joiners in the UK earn more than £34,014 a year, and half earn less.

Carpenters and joiners construct, erect, install and repair wooden structures and fittings used in internal and external frameworks and cut, shape, fit and assemble wood to make templates, jigs, scale models and scenic equipment for theatres.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, though GCSEs/S grades are advantageous. Entry is typically through an approved apprenticeship programme or college course in conjunction with on-the-job training, leading to a NVQ/SVQ level 2/3 qualification, or through building up work experience supplemented with short courses.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to determine job requirements
• selects and measures appropriate wood and cuts, shapes and drills to specification using saws, planes, chisels and other power or hand tools
• aligns and fixes prepared wood pieces by screwing, nailing, gluing and dowelling to form frames, shop fronts, counter units, decking, theatrical sets, furniture, small wooden craft, scale models and wooden templates
• checks accuracy of work with square, rule and spirit level
• maintains and repairs woodwork and fittings

Also called

Carpenter · Carpenter and joiner · Joiner · Kitchen fitter · Shop fitter

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for carpenters and joiners, 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

Bricklayers · Construction and building trades n.e.c. · Glaziers, window fabricators and fitters · Plumbers and heating and ventilating installers and repairers · Roofers, roof tilers and slaters · Steel erectors · Stonemasons and related trades