Construction Operatives: salary in the UK
What construction operatives earn across the United Kingdom, measured by the Office for National Statistics in its annual survey of employers' payroll records.
Median gross annual pay
£33,287
April 2025
Mean gross annual pay
£34,185
April 2025
Como ler este número
How to read this figure
De onde vem o dado
Source: ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 14 (occupation by four-digit SOC 2020, UK), 2025 provisional
Cuidado
What this number does not tell you
O que fazer com isso
What to do with this figure
How much this occupation pays
Across the United Kingdom the median gross annual pay for construction operatives (Standard Occupational Classification 815) was £33,287 in April 2025. The median is the middle salary: half of these employees earned less and half earned more. The mean of £34,185 is pulled up by the highest earners, which is why the two figures differ.
For comparison, the median for all employees in the UK was £32,890. These figures cover employees on adult rates who had been in the same job for more than a year, so they exclude the pay of people who changed job during the year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Median gross annual pay | £33,287 |
| Mean gross annual pay | £34,185 |
| Median gross weekly pay | £651 a week |
| Median gross hourly pay | £15.69 an hour |
| Median for full-time employees | £35,290 |
| Median for part-time employees | £14,431 |
| Employee jobs in the survey base (thousands) | 120 |
The pay range, from the lowest to the highest paid
ASHE publishes percentiles, which show the whole spread rather than a single average. The 10th percentile is the level that only the lowest paid tenth earn below; the 90th percentile is what the best paid tenth earn above.
Gross annual pay distribution, Construction Operatives
| Percentile | Gross annual pay |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest paid tenth) | £17,289 |
| 25th percentile | £25,828 |
| Median (50th percentile) | £33,287 |
| 75th percentile | £41,951 |
| 90th percentile (highest paid tenth) | £50,881 |
Men and women in this occupation
The median for men was £34,011 and for women £25,607. This is an unadjusted comparison: it does not control for hours worked, seniority or part-time working, so it is not a measure of unequal pay for the same work.
How reliable this figure is
Coefficient of variation 3.9% — ONS considers this estimate precise.
How does construction operatives: salary in the uk compare with the rest of the United Kingdom?
At £33,287, construction operatives: salary in the uk is above the £32,890 that average salary in the uk publishes for the United Kingdom as a whole — a difference of 1%. That gap is the first thing worth checking before comparing two job offers.
Why does pay for construction operatives: salary in the uk vary so much?
A quarter of people in this group are paid below £25,828 and a quarter above £41,951; the median sits at £33,287 and the mean at £34,185. The gap between the two ends is wide, which usually means experience, location or employer size separates the lowest and highest earners by more than the job title alone.
What does "April 2025" mean for construction operatives: salary in the uk?
The figures for construction operatives: salary in the uk come from ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Table 14 (occupation by four-digit SOC 2020, UK), 2025 provisional, with a reference period of April 2025. Pay statistics like this one are not updated in real time: the underlying survey or register takes months to collect and process, so the number reflects pay around that date, not today. Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.
Glossário: os termos desta página
Median vs. mean
The median is the middle value when every salary is lined up from lowest to highest: half earn less, half earn more. The mean is the simple average. A handful of very high salaries pulls the mean up without moving the median, so the median is usually the better guide to what a typical person earns.
Percentile
A percentile splits the distribution into 100 equal parts. The 10th percentile is the value only a tenth of people earn below; the 90th percentile is what only a tenth earn above. Looking at several percentiles shows the full spread, not just one average.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Full-time equivalent
A way of converting part-time hours into the pay a full-time version of the same job would earn, so that a two-day-a-week role can be compared fairly with a five-day one. Figures that mix full-time and part-time workers without adjusting for this tend to understate typical full-time pay.
Coefficient of variation
A measure of how much an estimate could be off, expressed as a percentage of the estimate itself. Statistical agencies use it to flag figures based on too small a sample: a high coefficient of variation means the number should be read as a rough order of magnitude, not an exact figure.
Fonte: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) — Office for National Statistics.
Reference period
The point in time, or the stretch of time, that a published figure actually describes. Pay surveys take months to collect and process, so the reference period is usually well before the date the figures are released, and always before the date you are reading them.
Occupational classification
A standard code that groups similar jobs so that pay statistics can be compared across employers and over time — the UK uses SOC, Canada uses NOC, the United States uses SOC as well, and the European Union uses ISCO. The same job title can sit in different codes depending on the classification used.
Fonte: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Pay statistics glossary — todos os 10 termos.
Reference period: April 2025
Data collected on: 7 October 2026
Released 2025-10-22, last revised 2025-12-19. Estimates marked by ONS as having a coefficient of variation above 20% are suppressed and shown here as unavailable.
Figures are statistical averages for a whole group of employees. Your own pay depends on your employer, your experience, your hours and where you work.