The Datum Report

Occupation 8142 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Assemblers (vehicles and metal goods)

Half of full-time assemblers (vehicles and metal goods) in the UK earn more than £31,919 a year, and half earn less.

Assemblers (vehicles and metal goods) undertake the routine assembly of vehicles and other metal goods or components such as frames, axles, wire brushes and wheels.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required. In some cases candidates must take aptitude and dexterity tests. Normal colour vision is required for some jobs. Training varies according to the complexity of the work.

What the work involves

• follows instructions and drawings and positions components on work bench or in assembly machine
• assembles prepared components in sequence by soldering, bolting, fastening, spot-welding, screwing and hammering using power and hand tools or assembly machine
• rejects faulty assembly components
• inspects finished article for faults, monitors assembly machine operation and reports any faults

Also called

Assembler (metal trades) · Car worker · Lineworker (vehicle mfr) · Manufacturing operator (metal trades) · Process worker (metal trades: assembly)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for assemblers (vehicles and metal goods), 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. 9 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

Assemblers (electrical and electronic products) · Assemblers and routine operatives n.e.c. · Routine inspectors and testers · Sewing machinists · Tyre, exhaust and windscreen fitters · Weighers, graders and sorters