What the job costs #
Salary is the part everyone quotes and the smallest part of the decision. Here is the employment cost at the national median, using the rates in force for the 2026 to 2027 tax year.
£29,991
Median salary
ONS ASHE 2025 (provisional), SOC 4133
£34,452
Employment cost a year
Salary, employer NI and minimum pension
£20
Per hour worked
37.5 hour week, 46.4 working weeks
| Item | A year | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Median salary | £29,991 | ONS ASHE 2025 (provisional), SOC 4133 |
| Employer National Insurance | £3,749 | 15 per cent above £5,000 |
| Minimum workplace pension | £713 | 3 per cent of qualifying earnings |
| Employment cost | £34,452 | About £20 an hour on a 37.5 hour week |
Recruitment, equipment, software seats, training and cover for holiday and sickness all sit on top, and they vary too much between businesses to put a number on here.
If you want to run your own figures, the true cost of an employee tool does this with your salary, hours and on costs.
What the week is actually made of #
Here is the job as it usually runs in a business, split by whether the work follows a fixed pattern or needs a person to decide something. This split is our analysis, not a survey, and your version of the role will differ.
Runs to a pattern (10 of 12)
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Book goods in against purchase orders daily
Count, compare, record.
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Print pick lists and despatch paperwork daily
System output on a schedule.
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Book courier and pallet collections daily
A portal form with known fields.
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Maintain stock records and bin locations daily
Structured data about physical things.
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Run and reconcile cycle counts and stock takes monthly
A counting process with a defined method.
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Process returns and book them back into stock daily
Inspect against a rule, then record.
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Chase suppliers on late or short deliveries daily
An exception list and a chase.
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Produce despatch and inventory reports weekly
Standing reports.
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Manage labels, barcodes and packaging supplies weekly
Reorder points.
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Log health and safety checks and equipment inspections monthly
A checklist on a schedule.
Needs a person (2 of 12)
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Investigate and correct stock discrepancies weekly
Finding out where a pallet went.
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Handle damage and shortage claims with carriers weekly
Evidence and argument.
What to do before you advertise #
The question is not whether to hire. It is what the person will be doing on a Tuesday afternoon in March. Two things are worth doing first, and both take less effort than writing the advert:
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Count the week you are about to buy
Write down the jobs this role would pick up, how long each takes and how often it happens. The cost of admin time calculator adds it up and puts a cost on it.
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Separate the pattern from the judgement
If most of the hours sit in the first list above, a hire will absorb the pressure rather than remove it, and the same pressure returns when the business grows again.
Plenty of businesses do both: automate the repeated half, then hire someone to do the half that needs a person, often part time or at a level that keeps them interested. That is a better job than the one the advert usually describes.
Where this role usually sits #
This job turns up most often in wholesale , logistics and haulage and trades and installers , and the admin around it looks different in each.
A note on the pay figure #
£29,991 is the median for full time employees in SOC 4133, Stock control clerks and assistants, from the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2025 (provisional). ONS publishes a coefficient of variation with every figure, and this one is 3 per cent, which ONS treats as reliable.
It is a national figure covering every employer size and region. What a specific business pays depends on where it is, how specialised the job is, and what else is on offer nearby.