Plant Operator Salary in South West

What most plant operators actually earn

Half of plant operators across the UK earn between £29,392 and £45,225. Earning above £45,225 puts you in the top quarter of the profession.

This range is UK-wide — ONS publishes no regional breakdown of the spread for this occupation.

Where this figure comes from

ONS occupation group

Mobile machine drivers and operatives n.e.c.

SOC 2020 code

8229

Measure

Gross annual pay, all employees

Edition

ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2025 provisional

ONS publishes a sampling error of 13.0% for this figure and asks that anything above 10% is treated as imprecise — too few people in this region answered the survey for this occupation. The figure is shown because it is the one ONS published, but it is not firm enough to rank South West against anywhere else, so this page doesn't.

ONS doesn't measure “plant operator” as its own category. These figures are for the wider group “Mobile machine drivers and operatives n.e.c.”, which includes this role alongside others. ONS measures mobile machine drivers and operatives not classified elsewhere.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures are estimates from a survey of PAYE jobs and are not financial advice.