The Datum Report

Occupation 8119 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Process operatives n.e.c.

Half of full-time process operatives n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £31,717 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group perform a variety of processing occupations not elsewhere classified in minor group 811: Process operatives.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, though some employers may expect entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades. Training is typically provided on-the-job, supplemented by specialist training courses. NVQs/SVQs in Performing Manufacturing Operations are available at levels 1, and 2.

What the work involves

• packs products ready for kiln setting
• operates kilns, furnaces and ovens to produce cement clinker, linoleum cement and asphalt, to fire abrasive and carbon products, to make and treat glass and ceramic items, and otherwise cook and heat treat materials and products not elsewhere classified
• operates masticating, calendaring, mixing, forming, shaping, moulding, extruding, cutting, trimming and winding machines to make and repair rubber products
• operates machines to mix, blend, crush, wash and separate seeds and other materials not elsewhere classified
• operates machines to produce flat and corrugated asbestos cement pipes and sheets
• performs other processing tasks not elsewhere classified

Also called

Glass worker · Moulder (rubber goods mfr) · Melting pot assistant (electric cable) · Process worker (fibreglass mfr) · Stone finisher (cast concrete products mfr)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for process operatives 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. 5 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 · Food, drink and tobacco process operatives · Metal making and treating process operatives · Plastics process operatives · Textile process operatives