The Datum Report

Occupation 6212 · Caring, leisure and other service occupations

Travel agents

Half of full-time travel agents in the UK earn more than £28,746 a year, and half earn less.

Travel agents advise travellers upon travel arrangements, make bookings and receive payment for travel arrangements made.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, although many employers require entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades. Off and on-the-job training is usually available. NVQs/SVQs in travel services at levels 2 and 3, BTEC, apprenticeships and higher level qualifications are available.

What the work involves

• discusses client requirements and shows brochures containing suitable packages
• establishes availability with tour operators and makes bookings
• consults travel time-tables, books travel tickets and accommodation
• handles cash, debit and credit card payment
• informs client of any changes in travel arrangements
• advises on issues of currency, passports, visa requirements, insurance, car hire, vaccinations and other health precautions

Also called

Reservations agent · Sales consultant (travel agents) · Travel adviser · Travel agent · Travel consultant

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for travel agents, 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. 8 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

Air travel assistants · Leisure and travel service occupations n.e.c. · Rail travel assistants · Sports and leisure assistants