The Datum Report

Occupation 5443 · Skilled trades occupations

Florists

Half of full-time florists in the UK earn more than £23,713 a year, and half earn less.

Florists sell flowers and related products in a wholesale or retail business, and design and make up floral bouquets, wreaths, tributes and other floral arrangements for sale to the public.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, although some employers may request GCSEs/S grades. Off and on-the-job training is provided. NVQs/SVQs in Floristry are available at levels 2 and 3. Professional qualifications are also available.

What the work involves

• orders and purchases fresh flowers, foliage and other floristry items such as ribbons, wire, cards, artificial flowers etc. from wholesalers or growers
• displays and cares for flowers, plants and ready-made floral arrangements in selling premises
• designs and makes up wreaths, bouquets, posies, corsages, headdresses and button holes using appropriate flowers, foliage, frame and trimmings
• confers with and advises customers regarding their design requirements and arranges for the delivery of floral arrangements as requested by the customer
• decorates buildings, halls, churches or other facilities for parties, weddings, etc
• sells flowers, plants, foliage etc. to the public and performs retail duties such as keeping accounts

Also called

Floral assistant · Floral designer · Florist · Flower arranger

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for florists, 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. 0 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

Furniture makers and other craft woodworkers · Glass and ceramics makers, decorators and finishers · Other skilled trades n.e.c.