UK CAD salary in 2025 is one of the few official figures in the world with CAD in the occupation name. The provisional Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, released by the Office for National Statistics on 23 October 2025, covers SOC 3120, CAD, drawing and architectural technicians. For all employees the median gross annual pay was £34,465 and the mean was £36,863. For full time employees the median was £35,221 and the mean was £37,639. The pay period is the one that includes 30 April 2025. The results are provisional.
The national full time median in that same release was £39,039. CAD technicians sit below the middle of full time pay in Britain. They are not a badly measured version of engineers. Engineers have their own, higher medians in the same workbook.
The distribution, not just the middle
| Gross annual pay, SOC 3120 | All employees | Full time |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs in the table | About 41,000 | About 38,000 |
| Lowest tenth | £23,817 | £24,108 |
| Lower quartile | £29,265 | £29,500 |
| Median | £34,465 | £35,221 |
| Mean | £36,863 | £37,639 |
| Upper quartile | £42,230 | £42,481 |
| Highest tenth | Not published | Not published |
The number of jobs is the table's count in thousands, 41 and 38, written here as people. The highest tenth is marked unusable in the sheet, so this guide does not invent a top end. Full time median hourly pay was £17.83. Mean hourly pay was £18.56. The lower quartile hourly figure was £14.64, and the upper quartile was £20.96.
Full time median pay in this occupation was 4.2 percent higher than the previous figure stored in the same table. The mean was 4.6 percent higher. That is a measured change for this code, not a story about every design office in the country.
Quality is published too. The coefficient of variation on the full time median is 5.6 percent. ONS treats that as a reasonably precise estimate. It is still a sample of employer payrolls, not a census of every CAD user.
Why all employees and full time differ
The all employee median of £34,465 includes part time jobs. The full time median of £35,221 does not. Salary talk in Britain usually means full time, so £35,221 is the figure to lead with. The all employee figure is the one that matches a lot of secondary writeups, and it is also official. Using either number without saying which population you mean is how two accurate articles appear to disagree by about £800.
Both medians sit below the national full time median of £39,039. A CAD technician is not badly paid relative to the drafter tradition. They are paid less, at the middle, than the typical full time employee across the whole UK economy in this survey. Benefits, London weighting, and overtime can change a household. They are not in the median the way people hope. The annual figures are gross pay. They are not a London salary.
The rest of the technical ladder in the same release
Full time medians from the same provisional table put the CAD occupation in context.
| Full time median, April 2025 provisional | Wage |
|---|---|
| CAD, drawing and architectural technicians | £35,221 |
| Building and civil engineering technicians | £37,229 |
| Engineering technicians | £44,843 |
| Architects | £47,143 |
| Engineering professionals not elsewhere classified | £48,776 |
| Mechanical engineers | £51,110 |
| Civil engineers | £51,366 |
| Engineering project managers and project engineers | £53,064 |
| Electrical engineers | £60,303 |
Engineering technicians, a broader group, earn more at the median than the CAD code. Architects and the main engineer groups earn more again. Electrical engineers are the high cell among the common disciplines, at £60,303. Building and civil engineering technicians, at £37,229, are close to the CAD median, on a smaller count of about 9,000 full time jobs, and several of their outer percentiles are suppressed. Treat that neighbor gently.
Aerospace engineers show a full time median of £55,839 in the sheet, and several surrounding cells are suppressed. A suppressed cell is not a zero and not a guess. This guide quotes the median and does not build a range around it.
These engineer figures are the right correction when a UK CAD average online climbs toward £50,000 or £60,000 without saying it has left the technician code. That climb may describe a designer or engineer title. It does not describe SOC 3120. CAD technician salary 2025 puts the UK code next to the American drafter median so the titles stay sorted.
What this release will not support
It will not support a SolidWorks wage, a Revit wage, or a BIM manager wage. Those titles are inside this technician code, or inside the engineer codes, or in neither, depending on the actual job. The workbook does not split them. A recruiter survey of placements can be interesting and still be a different method from ASHE. This page stays with ASHE.
It also will not support a precise London annual median from the national occupation sheet used here. Regional pay exists in other ONS tables, and many local cells for a small occupation are suppressed or noisy. Inventing a London uplift would be worse than saying the national full time median is £35,221 and local markets move around it.
The U.S. drafter median of $68,090 is not a translation of £35,221. Different occupation, different tax and benefit structure, different survey. US CAD salary 2025 is the other document. Read them side by side only as two descriptions.
Sources
- ONS, Earnings and hours worked, occupation by four digit SOC: ASHE Table 14, 2025 provisional. Released 23 October 2025. Gross annual pay and gross hourly pay for SOC 3120 and neighboring codes. Table 14.7a and Table 14.5a.
- ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2025. Full time median of £39,039. Provisional estimates relate to the pay period including 30 April 2025.