Plastics Process Operatives

Plastics process operatives attend and operate moulding, extruding, thermoforming, calendering, covering, cutting and other process equipment to make and repair plastic products.

Wages

New workers
AVERAGE
Experienced
£ 15,818
£ 24,579
£ 36,000

Available jobs

In the past year there were 16,626 vacancies for this type of job

Related courses

People work towards these careers by taking these courses at college and uni.

What they do most days?

  • Makes artificial eyes and contact lens discs, and makes and repairs spectacle frames and plastic parts of artificial limbs and other orthopaedic appliances.

  • Trims, cuts and performs other finishing operations on plastic using hand and machine tools.

  • Inspects plastic products for defects, takes measurements and repairs plastic belting and sheathing.

  • Monitors controls regulating temperature, pressure, etc. and operates moulding, extruding, calendering, thermoforming and covering machines.

  • Weighs and mixes ingredients, loads machine with plastic to be worked or regulates flow from feed conveyor or hopper.

  • Prepares machine for operation by affixing any necessary attachments.

Hard Skills

Hard skills are specific, learnable, measurable, often industry or occupation-specific abilities related to a position.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Extrusion

  • Machinery

  • Housekeeping

  • Machine Operation

  • Injection Molding

  • Moulder

  • Tooling

  • Plastic Materials

  • Plastics Extrusion

  • Warehousing

Soft Skills

Soft skills can be self-taught and usually do not necessitate a certain completed level of education.

Skills are ranked based on the number of job adverts that list them as required skills.

  • Communication

  • Detail Oriented

  • Troubleshooting (Problem Solving)

  • Quality Control

  • Problem Solving

  • Packaging And Labeling

  • Teamwork

  • Operations

  • Loading And Unloading

  • Lifting Ability

How do I get a job like this?

People in these types of job started their career paths after studying courses like the ones below.