The Datum Report

Occupation 8146 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Sewing machinists

Half of full-time sewing machinists in the UK earn more than £24,813 a year, and half earn less.

Sewing machinists sew and finish garments by hand or machine, rectify faults in manufactured textile goods and repair worn and damaged garments.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements. Training is received Off and on-the-job. NVQs/ SVQs are available at levels 1 and 2.

What the work involves

• operates standard and specialised machines to sew, finish and repair garments and other textile, fabric, fur and skin products
• examines fabrics of all types to identify imperfections and determine best method of repair
• performs hand sewing tasks in the making, trimming and finishing of fur, sheepskin, leather, upholstery, mats, carpets, umbrellas and other textile products
• embroiders decorative designs on textiles with machine stitching
• routinely cleans and oils machine and reports or remedies any mechanical faults

Also called

Overlocker · Seamstress · Sewing machinist · Stitcher · Upholstery machinist

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for sewing machinists, 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. 10 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 (vehicles and metal goods) · Assemblers and routine operatives n.e.c. · Routine inspectors and testers · Tyre, exhaust and windscreen fitters · Weighers, graders and sorters