The Datum Report

Occupation 8229 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Mobile machine drivers and operatives n.e.c.

Half of full-time mobile machine drivers and operatives n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £37,864 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group supervise and undertake the operation of machines to transport, excavate, grade, level, and compact sand, earth, gravel and similar materials, drive piles into the ground and lay surfaces of asphalt, concrete and chippings, clear and cultivate land, to sow and harvest plants and crops, and operate other mobile machines not elsewhere classified in minor group 822: Mobile machine drivers and operatives.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required. On-the-job training is provided. The appropriate current driving licence will be required for driving on public highways.

What the work involves

• fixes any necessary extensions onto machine and loads machine with asphalt, concrete, bitumen, tar, stone chippings or any other required materials
• manipulates levers, pedals and switches to manoeuvre vehicle, regulate angle and height of blades, buckets and hammers and starts conveyor, suction or water spraying system
• watches operation and removes any likely obstacle or obstructions
• directs refilling of machine hopper and repeats operations as necessary
• operates tractors, combine harvesters or other farm vehicles, attaches plough, cultivator or other implements and adjusts depth, speed and height to requirements
• drives and operates machinery to plough, fertilise, plant, cultivate or harvest crops
• cleans, oils and greases machine and carries out minor repairs

Also called

Agricultural machinist · Digger driver · Dredger · Excavator driver · JCB driver · Plant operator · Rig operator · Tractor driver (agriculture)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for mobile machine drivers and 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. 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

Crane drivers · Fork-lift truck drivers