The Datum Report

Occupation 8232 · Process, plant and machine operatives

Marine and waterways transport operatives

Half of full-time marine and waterways transport operatives in the UK earn more than £39,358 a year, and half earn less.

Marine and waterways transport operatives supervise and carry out a variety of deck duties and operate and maintain engines, boilers and mechanical equipment on board ships, boats and other marine vessels.

How people enter it

There are no formal academic entry requirements, although some employers may expect entrants to possess GCSEs/S grades. Candidates are expected to pass a medical examination and have good eyesight. Training takes place at nautical college and lasts between 11-13 weeks.

What the work involves

• ensures that necessary fuel supplies are on board and inspects engine, boilers and other mechanisms for correct functioning
• removes and repairs or replaces damaged or worn parts of plant and machinery and ensures that engine and plant machinery are well lubricated
• stows cargo, assists passengers to embark and disembark, watches for hazards and moors or casts off mooring ropes as required
• steers ship, under the supervision of a duty officer, checks navigational aids and keeps bridge, wheel and chartroom clean and tidy
• performs other deck duties, including servicing and maintaining deck gear and rigging, splicing wire and fibre ropes, greasing winches and derricks, opening up and battening down hatches, securing gangways and ladders and lowering and raising lifeboats

Also called

Deck hand (shipping) · Engine room attendant (shipping) · Engineer(nos: boat, barge) · Ferryman · Merchant seaman · Seaman (shipping)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for marine and waterways transport operatives, 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. 1 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

Air transport operatives · Other drivers and transport operatives n.e.c. · Rail transport operatives · Train and tram drivers