The Datum Report

Occupation 7114 · Sales and customer service occupations

Pharmacy and optical dispensing assistants

Half of full-time pharmacy and optical dispensing assistants in the UK earn more than £23,783 a year, and half earn less.

Pharmacy and optical dispensing assistants work under the supervision of pharmacists and opticians or optometrists to dispense drugs and medicines, issue pre-packaged prescriptions, sell over-the-counter medication, dispense spectacles and contact lenses and other related products.

How people enter it

Entrants usually possess GCSEs/S grades. Training is typically received on-the-job, supplemented by study towards vocational qualifications. NVQs/ SVQs are available in relevant areas and at various levels, and apprenticeships may be available.

What the work involves

• checks received prescriptions for legality and accuracy and confirms patients’ or customers’ details
• maintains records of prescriptions received and drugs issued
• checks stock levels, rotates stock, orders new stock from supplying companies and ensures that products are stored appropriately
• arranges displays of merchandise
• relays information to customers under the direction of pharmacist and opticians or optometrists
• carries out sales transaction, wraps and packages goods

Also called

Dispenser · Health care assistant (retail pharmacy) · Optical assistant · Pharmacy assistant

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for pharmacy and optical dispensing assistants, 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. 11 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

Retail cashiers and check-out operators · Sales and retail assistants · Telephone salespersons · Vehicle and parts salespersons and advisers