The Datum Report

Occupation 6121 · Caring, leisure and other service occupations

Pest controllers

Half of full-time pest controllers in the UK earn more than £28,323 a year, and half earn less.

Pest controllers investigate the presence of pests that are hazardous to public health or cause nuisance, lay traps to capture pests and treat areas of infestation.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry qualifications, though some employers may expect entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades. Training is provided on-the-job, supplemented by specialist courses covering different aspects of pest control.

What the work involves

• receives reports from public, property owners and authorities regarding the presence of pests and infestations
• visits sites to investigate the presence of rodents, infestations and other pests that may be hazardous to public health
• lays traps to capture pests, and fumigates and disinfects areas to remove infestations
• advises property owners on courses of action to prevent the return of pests
• liaises with environmental health officers, housing officers and other relevant authorities where measures on a large scale are required to remove pests
• returns to sites to examine contents of traps laid and the continued presence of reported pests
• treats wood for effects of termites, woodworm and other infestations of timber

Also called

Fumigator · Pest control officer · Pest control technician · Pest controller

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for pest controllers, 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. 1 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

Animal care services occupations n.e.c