The Datum Report

Occupation 9111 · Elementary occupations

Farm workers

Half of full-time farm workers in the UK earn more than £30,101 a year, and half earn less.

Farm workers perform a variety of tasks, by hand and machine, to produce and harvest crops and to breed and rear cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry.

How people enter it

There are no minimum academic entry requirements. Training is typically received on-the-job, supplemented by vocational training at an agricultural college. A variety of vocational qualifications in Agriculture are available at levels 1, 2 and 3, together with BTEC diplomas and apprenticeships in some areas.

What the work involves

• operates farm machinery to prepare soil, fertilise and treat crops
• cultivates growing crops by hoeing, spraying and thinning as necessary
• weighs and measures foodstuffs, feeds animals and checks them for any signs of disease
• cleans barns, sheds, pens, yards, incubators and breeding units and sterilises milking and other equipment as necessary
• Treats minor ailments, delivers vaccinations and other medicines under the direction of the veterinary surgeon, and assists the veterinary surgeon as required
• Catches, moves, and handles livestock, including in preparation for transport
• carries out maintenance on farm buildings, hedges, ditches and erects and repairs fences

Also called

Agricultural worker · Farm labourer · Farm worker · Herdsman · Poultry catcher · Shepherd

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for farm workers, 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. 8 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

Fishing and other elementary agriculture occupations n.e.c. · Forestry and related workers