The Datum Report

Occupation 5321 · Skilled trades occupations

Plasterers

Half of full-time plasterers in the UK earn more than £34,016 a year, and half earn less.

Plasterers apply dry linings, plaster and cement mixtures to walls and ceilings, fix fibrous sheets and cast and fix ornamental plasterwork to the interior or exterior of buildings.

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

• selects appropriate plasterboard or dry lining panels, cuts them to required size and fixes them to ceilings and walls
• mixes, or directs the mixing of, plaster to desired consistency
• applies and smooths one or more coats of plaster and produces a finished surface, using hand tools or mechanical spray
• pours liquid plaster into mould to cast ornamental plaster work
• measures, cuts, installs and secures plaster board and/or ornamental plasterwork to walls and ceilings
• covers and seals joints between boards and finishes surface
• checks surface level using line, spirit level and straight edge

Also called

Dry liner · Fibrous plasterer · Plasterer · Plastering contractor

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for plasterers, 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

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 3 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

Floorers and wall tilers · Painters and decorators