This is the average salary people are paid for this job. There will be people with this job who are paid much more, and people who are paid much less.

Factors such as local area, industry and employer, as well as qualifications, skills and experience, all affect pay levels. Even in the same company, two people with same job can have very different pay.

This figure is based on full-time employees and does not include overtime.

This indicates how many hours you can expect to work in a job. In some jobs, it is common to work long-hours. In other jobs it is rare to work above the average.

Your career stage can also affect the amount of hours you work. Junior doctors, for example, are known for working long hours. Senior doctors often work more regular hours. So the figures don’t tell the full story.

Is time outside of work important to you? Looking at average weekly hours can help you think about whether a job may be a good fit.

The figure here is for full-time workers and does not include overtime.

This tells you the split between men and women in this job. Some jobs have a greater number of men; others have more women. Some are more evenly split.

Companies and organisations are usually made up of people with different types of job, so even if you choose a job with more women or more men, you may not stand out in the workplace because of your gender.

Equally, you could choose a job with an average gender split, yet find yourself as the only man or women in your department.

No one can predict the future so the figures in this section are a best guess. Experts consider whether the need for a job is likely to increase, stay around the same or reduce. Factors such as technology and jobs moving overseas (think self-service checkouts or call centres outside the UK) will affect certain job types. Experts also look at how many people are expected to start and leave work in an industry in the coming years – industries with large numbers of workers due to retire may have a greater need for new entrants.

This information could be useful if you’re trying to decide between two different career paths and want the best possible chance of getting a job.

If a job is in decline, there may still be opportunities available. But it could be harder to find a job, or the jobs available could become more specialist or need new skills.

This shows the percentage of people in this job who work part-time, full-time or who are self-employed.

In some jobs, it is common to work part-time; in others it is still quite unusual.

Sometimes there is a link between gender and the number of part-time workers. For example, more women than men try to balance work with childcare or other family commitments.

In general, levels of part-time and flexible working are expected to increase in the future.

The data does not show if self-employed people work full or part-time.

Required skills can vary from job to job, and even people on very similar career paths might need different skills depending on their specialism.

For example, an Engineering Technician might specialise in electronics, environment, automotive amongst a range of possibilities. For this reason, what they need to be good at might vary slightly.

For this graph, we have chosen xxx out of a list of possiblities within this career path.

We are only showing the top 8 skills required, on a scale where 10 is the most important, and 1 is the least important.