The Datum Report

Occupation 8159 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Construction operatives n.e.c.

Half of full-time construction operatives n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £32,446 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group operate insulating equipment, fix plasterboard to ceilings and walls, help construct, maintain, repair and demolish buildings and clean and resurface eroded stonework, lay, join and examine pipe sections for drainage, gas, water or similar piping systems, install lighting systems in roads, domestic and commercial settings and carry out a variety of other construction operative tasks not elsewhere classified in minor group 815: Construction operatives.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements. Training is typically provided on-the-job. NVQs/SVQs in Building and Construction at levels 1, 2 and 3 and apprenticeships in some areas are available.

What the work involves

• fills machine with insulating mixture, positions hose, drills access hole and fills cavities or coats surfaces to prevent loss or absorption of heat and provide fire protections
• cuts, shapes and fits wood, lays bricks and tiles, cleans exterior surfaces of buildings and resurfaces eroded stone or brickwork, and performs other tasks in the construction, alteration, repair and demolition of buildings
• selects appropriate asbestos, clay, concrete, plastic or metal pipe sections and lowers them into prepared trenches using hoisting equipment
• joints pipe by sealing with rubber, cement, lead, etc., connects piping to manholes and attaches pipe junctions as required
• tests joints with electronic test equipment or by filling piping with water, smoke or compressed air
• installs electrical lighting in streets, homes and business/manufacturing settings

Also called

Asbestos remover · Cable layer · Demolition worker · General handyman · Maintenance man · Public lighting operative · Thermal insulation engineer

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for construction 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. 11 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

Rail construction and maintenance operatives · Road construction operatives · Scaffolders, stagers and riggers