butcher
Butchers order, inspect and buy meat to prepare it and sell it as consumable meat products. They perform activities such as cutting, trimming, boning, tying, and grinding beef, pork, and poultry meat. They prepare those mentioned sorts of meat for consumption.
butcher butchers order, inspect and buy meat to prepare it and sell it as consumable meat products. They perform activities such as cutting, trimming, boning, tying, and grinding beef, pork, and poultry meat. They prepare those mentioned sorts of meat for consumption. The role shows moderate AI exposure (0.46 on a 0-1 scale) — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. The most in-demand skills for the role include legislation about animal origin products, warm blooded animal organs, cultural practices regarding animal parts sorting, food storage, animal anatomy for food production.
Pay in the UK
UK: median £28,859 a year for Butchers (ONS ASHE 2025, full-time)
Middle half of full-time jobs: £25,989 to £32,218 a year
UK jobs are grouped differently; this is the closest UK occupation group (ONS SOC 2020 5431). ONS rates this estimate precise. 2025 provisional figures; ONS revises them a year later. Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Open Government Licence)
Pay in India (occupation group)
Average monthly earnings of salaried employees in the occupation group “Craft and related trades workers” in India, from the Government of India's Periodic Labour Force Survey (January–December 2025). It covers everyone in this group, not only butcher, and it is not US pay converted to rupees.
Source: MoSPI (Government of India), Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025, Table 51 — average wage/salary earnings of regular wage/salaried employees, NCO-2015 division 7. Official India data gives one average per occupation group: there are no official India figures for single careers, experience levels or cities. Read the report
Top skills
Knowledge you'll build
- Customer and Personal Service
- Food Production
- Production and Processing
- Sales and Marketing
- English Language
- Administration and Management
- Mathematics
- Education and Training
What you'd actually do
- Prepare and place meat cuts and products in display counter to appear attractive and catch the shopper's eye.
- Wrap, weigh, label, and price cuts of meat.
- Cut, trim, bone, tie, and grind meats, such as beef, pork, poultry, and fish, to prepare in cooking form.
- Prepare special cuts of meat ordered by customers.
- Receive, inspect, and store meat upon delivery to ensure meat quality.
- Estimate requirements and order or requisition meat supplies to maintain inventories.
Tools & technology you'd use
Frequently asked questions
What does butcher do?
Butchers order, inspect and buy meat to prepare it and sell it as consumable meat products. They perform activities such as cutting, trimming, boning, tying, and grinding beef, pork, and poultry meat. They prepare those mentioned sorts of meat for consumption.
What skills does butcher need?
The most in-demand skills for this role include legislation about animal origin products, warm blooded animal organs, cultural practices regarding animal parts sorting, food storage, animal anatomy for food production, tolerate strong smells. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.
Will AI replace butcher?
Our AI-durability model gives butcher a score of 0.46 on a 0-1 scale (higher = more exposure). That places it at moderate AI exposure — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. Learning to work with AI tools rather than against them is the path forward.