The Datum Report

Occupation 8111 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Food, drink and tobacco process operatives

Half of full-time food, drink and tobacco process operatives in the UK earn more than £28,243 a year, and half earn less.

Food, drink and tobacco process operatives set, operate and attend machinery to bake, freeze, heat, crush, mix, blend and otherwise process foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco leaves.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, though some GCSEs/S grades can be an advantage. Off and on-the-job training is available. Vocational qualifications related to food and drink manufacturing, including apprenticeships, are available at up to level 3.

What the work involves

• sets, operates and attends machinery and ovens to mix, bake and otherwise prepare bread and flour confectionery products
• operates machinery to crush, mix, malt, cook and ferment grains and fruits to produce beer, wines, malt liquors, vinegar, yeast and related products
• attends equipment to make jam, toffee, cheese, processed cheese, margarine, syrup, ice, pasta, ice-cream, sausages, chocolate, maize starch, edible fats and dextrin
• operates equipment to cool, heat, dry, roast, blanch, pasteurise, smoke, sterilise, freeze, evaporate and concentrate foodstuffs and liquids used in food processing
• mixes, pulps, grinds, blends and separates foodstuffs and liquids with churning, pressing, sieving, grinding and filtering equipment
• processes tobacco leaves by hand or machine to make cigarettes, cigars, pipe and other tobacco products

Also called

Baker (food products mfr) · Bakery assistant · Factory worker (food products mfr) · Meat processor (meat packing) · Process worker (brewery) · Process worker (dairy)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for food, drink and tobacco process operatives, 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

Chemical and related process operatives · Metal making and treating process operatives · Plastics process operatives · Process operatives n.e.c. · Textile process operatives