Aircraft engineer salary in the UK
What aircraft maintenance engineers earn: about £36,000 for an unlicensed mechanic to £87,500 for a type-rated licensed engineer, before shift pay, on adverts from October 2026. The official median for the whole trade is £48,155.
- £48,155 official median for the trade in 2026; full-time, about 20% above the UK’s full-time median1
- £49,017 to £87,500 on licensed B1 and B2 adverts84
- £50 to £65 an hour on B1 contracts141516
- £15,600 to £16,000 for an apprentice’s first year2625
Updated 24 October 2026 · sources checked 23 October 2026 · Sources
This page is about the people who maintain aircraft and hold, or work towards, a Part-66 licence. Aerospace engineers who design aircraft are a different job with different pay, and several pages that rank for “aircraft engineer salary” describe that job instead.
Pay at each stage
Base pay a year, before shift pay and overtime. Each line says where its figures come from.
| Stage | Pay | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Apprentice, year 1 | £15,600–£16,000 | KLM UK and British Airways apprenticeship adverts2625 |
| Apprentice, year 2 (British Airways) | £26,000 or more | Plus shift pay where eligible25 |
| Unlicensed mechanic or technician | £36,443–£44,000 | Four adverts, Norwich, RAF Marham, Lasham, Cardiff10111213 |
| Category A mechanic | + £750 a type | One employer’s authorisation payment, up to five types28 |
| Licensed B1 or B2, first role | £49,017–£60,000 | Defence role at RAF Cosford8; recruiter guide “newly licensed” band £45,000–£60,00027 |
| Licensed, general aviation | £60,000–£70,000 | B1.2 or B3 on a training fleet9 |
| Type-rated B1 or B2, helicopters | £75,000–£77,000+ | B2 avionics and B1.3 adverts67 |
| Type-rated B1 or B2, base maintenance | £80,000–£87,500 | Glasgow and Cardiff adverts, with relocation support54 |
| Top of an airline scale, Heathrow | over £100,000 | American Airlines, Unite deal 2025, incl. shift pay and London allowance; entry £78,54623 |
Adverts are dated September and October 2026 unless marked; a job advert is what an employer offers, not what everyone in the job earns.
The official figures
The Office for National Statistics publishes pay for “Aircraft maintenance and related trades” (occupation code 5234) every year. The 2026 figures came out on 22 October 20261.
| 2026, provisional | All employees | Full-time |
|---|---|---|
| Median a year | £48,155 | £48,965 |
| Mean a year | £51,663 | £52,951 |
| 20th percentile | £34,667 | £35,465 |
| 60th percentile | £52,046 | £52,753 |
| Median an hour | £24.60 | £24.84 |
| Paid hours a week (median) | 37.5 | 37.7 |
The median rose 6.6% on 2025 (£45,163). The full-time median, £48,965, is about 20% above the median for all full-time employees in the UK, £40,911 (our arithmetic from the same table)1. Three limits matter:
- Licensed and unlicensed staff are counted together, so the median sits between the mechanic adverts and the licensed ones.
- Contractors are left out: the survey covers employees only, in the same job for over a year1.
- The top is hidden: the 70th to 90th percentiles and overtime are suppressed because the sample is too small1.
What moves pay
- 1
- 2
- 3
Shifts
Rotating days and nights add a separate allowance: up to £10,500 a year at British Airways20.
- 4
Airlines
British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, TUI and Ryanair printed no base salary on their 2026 engineering adverts. What they do publish:
| British Airways | Shift pay of £4,450 to £10,500 a year, and a pension of up to 16.5% with the employee’s 5%20. A three-year deal from February 2025 raised pay by 4.5%, then 3%, then 3%, with reward payments24 |
|---|---|
| easyJet | A bonus of up to 15%, a 7% pension, and pay raised by a new agreement for its engineering team, without figures21 |
| Emirates, Heathrow | “Around 55k in your first year” for an aircraft technician, including shift pay, licence pay and allowances22 |
| American Airlines, Heathrow | Entry £78,546, top of scale over £100,000 rising to £108,000 by 2027, crew chiefs over £113,000, all including shift pay and London allowance23 |
The American Airlines scale covers a station of about 60 engineers, and Unite calls it among the most favourable in the UK23: treat it as the top of the market, not the typical airline salary.
Contracting
Many licensed engineers work on contracts, paid by the hour.
| Role | Rate | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| B1, base maintenance, Glasgow Prestwick | £50 an hour | Outside IR35, £0.48 an hour tooling deduction, November to February14 |
| B1, heavy maintenance, Cardiff | £60 days, £64 nights | To June 202715 |
| B1.3 helicopters with Category C | £60–£65 an hour | Outside IR35, two months, March 202616 |
| Unlicensed mechanic, business jets | £30–£35 an hour | £30 outside IR35; £35 inside1718 |
An hourly rate is not a salary. At £50 an hour, 1,800 paid hours a year is £90,000 of gross income, and a full 2,400 hours is £120,000 (our arithmetic). From that a contractor pays for holidays, gaps between contracts, pension, tools and an accountant. Inside IR35 through an umbrella company the employer’s costs come out of the rate too: on one advert the same job paid £21.58 an hour on the payroll and £28.87 through an umbrella19.
Shift pay, overtime and call-outs
- Shift allowance: £4,450 to £10,500 a year at British Airways, depending on the pattern20; £5,000 a year on a 5-5-4 pattern at a Bournemouth avionics employer29.
- Overtime: across the trade, overtime averaged about £65 a week in 2026 (our arithmetic: mean weekly pay with and without overtime)1.
- Standby and call-outs: one training-fleet employer pays £70 for each weekend on call, and call-outs at time and a half30.
- Patterns on 2026 adverts: 4 on 4 off, 5-5-4 with 12-hour shifts, days and nights in rotation, and 14 on 14 off for remote helicopter work2047.
Where in the UK
Official medians by region exist only for 2025, and only for a few regions, on small samples2.
| Region, 2025 | Median a year |
|---|---|
| London | £58,808 |
| South West | £45,135 |
| Wales | £43,710 |
| North West | £41,981 |
The adverts tell a different story: the highest permanent offers in October 2026 were in Cardiff and Glasgow, with relocation support45.
Apprentices
From April 2026 the apprentice minimum wage is £8.00 an hour, for apprentices under 19 or in their first year3. KLM UK Engineering’s £15,600 is exactly that for a 37.5-hour week (our arithmetic)26; British Airways pays £16,000 in year one and at least £26,000 in year two, plus shift pay25. An apprentice aged 21 or over who has finished the first year is due at least £12.71 an hour3.
How to get there, apprenticeship or not: How to become a licensed aircraft engineer in the UK.
What we could not find
We left out figures we could not trace to a source. These are still unknown:
- A base salary on any 2026 advert from British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, TUI or Ryanair
- A printed salary for a Category C certifying engineer or shift lead
- Pay at the offshore helicopter operators
- A method-documented UK survey of licensed engineers’ pay by licence category
Some pages quote B1 and B2 salaries far apart, or name airline packages no primary source supports; we found nothing to back those figures, so they are not here.
Pay: common questions
How much does a B1 licensed aircraft engineer earn in the UK?
On permanent adverts from October 2026, from £49,017 for a defence role at RAF Cosford to £86,000 to £87,500 for a type-rated engineer in base maintenance in Cardiff, before shift pay84. B1 contractors were offered £50 to £64 an hour1415. Type ratings move pay most: the top adverts asked for named aircraft types.
How much does a B2 engineer earn?
Much the same as a B1. A B2 avionics role on helicopters at Gloucestershire Airport advertised £75,000 to £77,0006, and one band, £72,061 to £82,881, appeared on both a B1 and a B2 advert on 23 October 202631. We found no source showing either licence pays more; see B1 vs B2.
What does a Category A mechanic earn?
Unlicensed mechanics and technicians were advertised at £36,443 to £44,00010111213. Category A adds payments at some employers: one business-aviation employer at Luton pays £750 for each aircraft type an A-licensed mechanic is authorised on, up to five28.
What is that per month?
The official median for the trade, £48,155 a year, is about £4,010 a month before tax (our arithmetic1). A licensed engineer on £80,000 is about £6,670 a month before tax, plus any shift pay.
Do aircraft engineers earn £100,000?
Some do. Under Unite’s 2025 deal with American Airlines at Heathrow, top-of-scale engineers earn over £100,000, reaching £108,000 by 2027, including shift pay and London allowance23. That is a small station at the top of the market; the official median is £48,1551. Contractors on long contracts can also pass £100,000 a year in gross turnover (see contracting below).
Does London pay more?
The official figures say yes, on a small sample: in 2025 the median was £58,808 in London against £41,981 in the North West2. But the highest permanent adverts in October 2026 were in Cardiff and Glasgow, with relocation support45, and Heathrow airlines publish allowances rather than base salaries2022.
Is an aircraft maintenance engineer the same as an aerospace engineer?
No. Aerospace engineers design and develop aircraft; aircraft maintenance engineers keep them airworthy and hold, or work towards, a Part-66 licence. They are separate occupations in the official statistics, and many salary pages mix them up1.
Sources
Every figure and rule on this page, with where it comes from. Checked 23 October 2026.
- 1Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 14 (occupation), 2026 provisional: 5234 Aircraft maintenance and related tradesOffice for National Statistics · released 22 October 2026
- 2Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Table 15 (region by occupation), 2025 provisionalOffice for National Statistics
- 3National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates (April 2026)GOV.UK
- 4B1 / B2 Licensed Aircraft Engineer, Cardiff (base maintenance, A330 and A320/737)Reed.co.uk · posted 23 October 2026
- 5B1 Licensed Aircraft Engineer, GlasgowLinkedIn (Copello Global) · about 28 September 2026
- 6Avionics Engineer B2, Gloucestershire Airport (helicopters, emergency services)Reed.co.uk · posted 12 October 2026
- 7B1.3 Licensed Aircraft Engineer, Scotland (H145, 14 on / 14 off)Reed.co.uk · posted 6 October 2026
- 8Licensed Aircraft Engineer, RAF CosfordLinkedIn (Babcock International) · about 21 October 2026
- 9Licensed Aircraft Engineer, B1.2 or B3, Gloucestershire (DA42 fleet)Reed.co.uk · posted 23 October 2026
- 10Aircraft Mechanic, NorwichReed.co.uk · posted 1 October 2026
- 11Aircraft Mechanic, RAF MarhamReed.co.uk · posted 9 October 2026
- 12B1 Aircraft Mechanic, LashamLinkedIn (2Excel) · about 2 July 2026
- 13Aircraft Technician, CardiffReed.co.uk · posted 8 October 2026
- 14B1 Licensed Engineer contract, Glasgow PrestwickContractorUK · posted 12 October 2026
- 15B1 Licensed Engineer contract, Cardiff base maintenanceReed.co.uk · posted 14 September 2026
- 16B1.3 Engineer contract, Gloucestershire (Category C required)Manpower · published 30 March 2026
- 17Contract Aircraft Mechanic, business jets, North LondonReed.co.uk · posted 15 October 2026
- 18Aircraft Mechanic, corporate jets, Dorset (inside IR35)Reed.co.uk · posted 19 October 2026
- 19Skilled and semi-skilled aircraft fitters, Filton (PAYE and umbrella rates)Reed.co.uk · posted 16 October 2026
- 20Licensed Aircraft Engineer, Longhaul, HeathrowLinkedIn (British Airways) · about 15 October 2026
- 21B1 Licensed Engineer, GatwickLinkedIn (easyJet) · about 23 October 2026
- 22Aircraft Technician, London HeathrowLinkedIn (Emirates) · about 9 October 2026
- 23Unite members celebrate landmark six-figure pay deal with American AirlinesUnite the Union · 19 March 2025
- 24Unite wins significant pay award for British Airways staffUnite the Union · 11 February 2025
- 25British Airways, Aircraft Maintenance (Spring) apprenticeshipFind an apprenticeship (GOV.UK) · posted 19 October 2026
- 26KLM UK Engineering, Aircraft Maintenance Apprentice, NorwichFind an apprenticeship (GOV.UK) · posted 30 September 2026
- 27Licensed Aircraft Engineer Salary GuideMane Contract Services · correct as of October 2026
- 28Mechanic / A Licensed Mechanic, Luton (business aviation)LinkedIn (JMC Aviation) · about 2 October 2026
- 29Avionic Technician, Bournemouth (5-5-4 shift allowance)Reed.co.uk · posted 20 October 2026
- 30Aircraft Maintenance Technician, Gloucestershire Airport (standby and call-out pay)LinkedIn (Skyborne Airline Academy) · about 19 October 2026
- 31B1 / B2 job searches, UK adverts (one band on a B1 and a B2 advert)aviationjobsearch.com · read 23 October 2026
More career guides
The licence is what changes the pay
Every licence starts with the module exams. Practice questions for every Part-66 module, each with an explanation, timed mock exams, and study notes for the theory.
Practice questions with explanations for every module, from €3.75 a month on the yearly plan.