The Datum Report

Occupation 5442 · Skilled trades occupations

Furniture makers and other craft woodworkers

Half of full-time furniture makers and other craft woodworkers in the UK earn more than £33,078 a year, and half earn less.

Furniture makers and other craft woodworkers make, repair and restore wooden furniture, decorative objects and other crafted pieces of woodwork.

How people enter it

There are no formal entry requirements, although entrants typically possess a variety of academic and vocational qualifications. Training is provided Off and on-the-job. A number of NVQs/SVQs and other vocational qualifications covering various aspects of furniture production and wood machining are available at various levels. Apprenticeships in Cabinet Making are available in some areas.

What the work involves

• examines drawings and specifications to determine job requirements and appropriate materials
• selects, measures, cuts and shapes wood using saws, chisels, planes, powered hand tools and woodworking machines
• assembles parts with crafted joints, nails, screws, dowels or adhesives and fits locks, catches, hinges, castors, drawers, shelves and other fittings
• removes, replaces or repairs damaged parts of wooden furniture
• measures floor area to be covered and lays wood blocks, parquet panels or hardwood strips
• matches and marks out veneers ready for cutting and examines and repairs defects in veneer or plywood sheets

Also called

Antiques restorer · Cabinet maker · Coffin maker · Furniture restorer · Joiner (cabinet making) · Picture framer · Sprayer (furniture mfr)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for furniture makers and other craft woodworkers, full-time employees, 2024 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

Florists · Glass and ceramics makers, decorators and finishers · Other skilled trades n.e.c.