The Datum Report

Occupation 8135 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Printing machine assistants

Half of full-time printing machine assistants in the UK earn more than £29,925 a year, and half earn less.

Printing machine assistants set and operate letterpress, platen or cylinder, lithographic and photogravure printing machines, photocopiers, office printers, duplication machines and other reprographic equipment.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required. Off and on-the-job training is provided. NVQs/SVQs in Screen Printing are available at levels 1 and 2, and in Machine Printing at levels 2 and 3.

What the work involves

• positions printing plates, loads inks into reservoirs and loads paper rolls or sheets into printing press
• sets controls to control the speed, pressure and ink flow of printing machine
• loads photocopiers, office printers, duplication machines and other reprographic equipment with stationery
• starts reprographic or printing machine and monitors operation for paper misfeeds and error messages, removes blockages and replaces damaged paper, and monitors quality of output
• carries out routine maintenance and cleaning of printing machine
• sets and operates machines for cutting paper to specified dimensions or for folding or binding to produce finished paper items
• sets and operates presses for stamping patterns and labels on textiles, clothing, pottery, footwear and other leather goods

Also called

Finishing operative (printing) · Lithographer (printing) · Machinist (printing) · Print operator · Printer’s assistant

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for printing machine 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. 6 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. · Water and sewerage plant operatives