slaughterer
Slaughterers slaughter animals and process carcasses for further processing and distribution.
slaughterer slaughterers slaughter animals and process carcasses for further processing and distribution. The role shows moderate AI exposure (0.50 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, documentation concerning meat production, cultural practices regarding animal slaughter, 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 slaughterer, 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
- English Language
- Law and Government
- Mathematics
- Administrative
- Administration and Management
What you'd actually do
- Remove bones, and cut meat into standard cuts in preparation for marketing.
- Sever jugular veins to drain blood and facilitate slaughtering.
- Tend assembly lines, performing a few of the many cuts needed to process a carcass.
- Shackle hind legs of animals to raise them for slaughtering or skinning.
- Slit open, eviscerate, and trim carcasses of slaughtered animals.
- Stun animals prior to slaughtering.
Tools & technology you'd use
Frequently asked questions
What does slaughterer do?
Slaughterers slaughter animals and process carcasses for further processing and distribution.
What skills does slaughterer need?
The most in-demand skills for this role include legislation about animal origin products, warm blooded animal organs, documentation concerning meat production, cultural practices regarding animal slaughter, animal anatomy for food production, slaughter animals. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.
Will AI replace slaughterer?
Our AI-durability model gives slaughterer a score of 0.50 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.