The Datum Report

Occupation 8134 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Water and sewerage plant operatives

Half of full-time water and sewerage plant operatives in the UK earn more than £39,690 a year, and half earn less.

Water and sewerage plant operatives operate valves to control water supplies in mains and pipelines, attend screening, filtering, water purifying and sedimentation plant, clear any blockages and patrol and maintain sewerage systems.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements. Training is provided Off and on-the-job. NVQs/ SVQs in Operating Process Plant are available at level 2.

What the work involves

• attends water filtration and purification plant, monitors chemical treatment and regulates treatment of water supply within strict guidelines
• opens and closes valves to regulate quantity and pressure of water and reports defective valves or abnormal water pressure
• stops water supply in an emergency and informs consumers likely to be affected
• regulates flow of raw sewage into screening plant, releases screened sewage and regulates its flow into detritus pits, sedimentation tanks and filtration beds
• cleans out screen compartments, sedimentation tanks and filtration beds manually or using mechanical scraper
• patrols sections of sewer, examines for any blockages or gas releases and clears blockages by flushing or by using boring rods
• digs trench and assists pipe layers to lay, renew or repair sewerage pipes

Also called

Controller (water treatment) · Plant operator (sewage works) · Pump attendant · Water treatment engineer · Water treatment operator

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for water and sewerage plant 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. 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

Energy plant operatives · Mining and quarry workers and related operatives · Paper and wood machine operatives · Plant and machine operatives n.e.c. · Printing machine assistants