The Datum Report

Occupation 9129 · Elementary occupations

Elementary construction occupations n.e.c.

Half of full-time elementary construction occupations n.e.c. in the UK earn more than £28,591 a year, and half earn less.

Job holders in this unit group perform a variety of general labouring and construction duties to assist building, civil engineering and related trades workers in the performance of their tasks not elsewhere classified in minor group 912: Elementary construction occupations.

How people enter it

No academic qualifications are required. Training is typically provided on-the-job. NVQs/SVQs in a variety of construction and craft occupations are available at levels 1, 2 and 3.

What the work involves

• conveys blocks, bricks, stone, mortar, roofing, felt, slates, wood and other building materials to the work area
• assists with the erection of ladders, scaffolding and work platforms, the rigging of cradles of hoisting equipment and the attaching of slings, hooks and guide ropes
• mixes mortar, grouting material, cement screed, and plaster, prepares adhesive, primer and paints and similar construction material, and undertakes basic decorating, painting, plumbing and other maintenance and repair tasks
• cleans equipment and tools, clears work area and otherwise assists building and woodworking trades workers as directed
• performs general labouring tasks such as loading and delivering materials and equipment, removing wall coverings, and preparing surfaces by cleaning, sanding, filling, etc.
• covers ceilings, floors, walls and exposed surfaces of boilers, pipes and plant with insulating material
• heats and breaks up blocks of asphalt, bitumen or tar, stirs melting mixture, adds aggregate if required, pours mixture into buckets
• measures and fixes timber and other structures to support excavations, cables or other rail, signal and telecoms equipment
• maintains land drainage systems and prepares graves for burial
• operates, cleans and lubricates valves and sluices, removes weeds, dead animals and other debris from waterways and carries out minor repairs to banks and footbridges
• helps diver into and out of diving suit, maintains communication with submerged diver and checks equipment and time spent under water

Also called

Building worker · Electrician’s mate (building construction) · Hod carrier · Labourer (building construction) · Odd job man · Sea diver’s assistant

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for elementary construction occupations 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

Groundworkers