The Datum Report

Occupation 5449 · Skilled trades occupations

Other skilled trades n.e.c.

Half of full-time other skilled trades n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £29,340 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group engrave jewellery and stoneware, make artificial hairpieces, charge fireworks and munitions with explosive material, make lampshades, wickerwork, toys, dolls, models, candles, artificial flowers, other fancy goods, make patterns for moulds for metal castings, make and tune musical instruments, craft precious metals and stones, and perform other hand craft occupations not elsewhere classified in minor group 544: Other skilled trades.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements. Training is typically via apprenticeship or through specialised courses. NVQs/SVQs are available in some areas.

What the work involves

• uses hand or machine tools to engrave letters, patterns and other designs on jewellery and stoneware
• constructs and covers wire frames for lampshades
• makes wigs, beards and other artificial hairpieces from human hair or synthetic materials
• interweaves canes of willow, withy, bamboo, rattan or similar material to make baskets and other pieces of wickerwork
• charges fireworks, cartridges and other munitions with explosive material
• makes children’s toys, dolls, models, candles, artificial flowers and other fancy goods
• makes, maintains and adapts surgical and orthopaedic appliances
• makes patterns for moulds, fits metal castings, pours plaster, fills plaster mould with resin and smooths surface
• makes musical instruments, makes and assembles parts for musical instruments, and tunes to improve pitch, tone and volume
• makes and repairs jewellery and decorative precious metal ware, sets, cuts and polishes gemstones and makes master patterns for articles of jewellery

Also called

Diamond mounter · Engraver · Goldsmith · Paint sprayer · Piano tuner · Sign maker (electric signs) · Silversmith · Wig maker

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for other skilled trades n.e.c., 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. 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 · Furniture makers and other craft woodworkers · Glass and ceramics makers, decorators and finishers