Nearly half of the UK's upholsterers are self-employed, ONS figures show

The Office for National Statistics' Annual Population Survey estimates that 12,800 people in the UK worked as upholsterers in the year to March 2026, and 36,100 as furniture makers and other craft woodworkers. These are survey estimates with wide margins. ONS publishes a confidence range of plus or minus 4,400 for upholsterers and 7,400 for furniture makers, so a small change from one period to the next should not be read as a trend.

Half the trade works for itself

Of the 12,800 upholsterers, 6,600 are employees and 6,100 are self-employed, about 48%. Among furniture makers the self-employed are the majority: 20,100 of 36,100, about 56%.

An older workforce

An ONS breakdown of the same survey by age puts 5,184 upholsterers at 55 or older, about 41% of the total. Among furniture makers, 17,283 are 50 or older, about 48%, and 12,342 are 55 or older, about 34%. Some age bands for upholsterers are too small for ONS to publish, so the share over 50 cannot be given.

Women make up about 27% of upholsterers, 3,441 of 12,755 in the age and sex breakdown, and about 17% of furniture makers, 6,092 of 36,061.

Small firms, and a Yorkshire heartland

The UK has 6,600 furniture manufacturing businesses, and 5,365 of them, about 81%, employ fewer than ten people, according to ONS UK Business Counts for 2025. The largest group is other furniture, with 3,925 businesses, followed by kitchen furniture with 1,595 and office and shop furniture with 825.

Furniture manufacturing employs about 73,000 people in Great Britain, according to the Business Register and Employment Survey for 2024. Yorkshire and The Humber accounts for 20,000 of those jobs, about 27%, more than any other region. The North West is next with 10,000. These are jobs in furniture manufacturing businesses of every kind, not only upholsterers and makers.

Pay

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, provisional for 2025, gives a median gross annual pay of £26,966 for all employee upholsterers and £27,909 for those working full-time. It covers employees only, so the self-employed half of the trade is not in it.