Hydraulic forging press worker
Also called hydraulic foundry moulder, hydraulic sheet metal worker, hydraulic foundry patternmaker
Hydraulic forging press workers set up and tend hydraulic forging presses, designed to shape ferrous and non-ferrous metal workpieces including pipes, tubes and hollow profiles and other products of the first processing of steel in their desired form by use of compressive forces generated by a piston and fluid pressure.
What you'd do
Blacksmiths, hammersmiths and forging press workers · ILO- Heating metal in forge furnace and manufacturing and repairing articles by drawing, bending, cutting, hammering metal on an anvil, punching, shearing, joining and hardening or tempering
- Shaping heated metal into forgings on power hammer equipped with open dies
- Operating closed-die drop hammer to forge metal articles
- Operating a power-press machine equipped with closed dies to forge metal articles
- Drawing wire
- Reading work orders or blueprints to determine specified tolerances and sequences of operations for machine setup
- Measuring and inspecting machine parts to ensure conformance to product specifications
- On your feet most of the day
- Lots of contact with people, mostly with colleagues
- Good freedom to decide
- Often more than 40 hours a week
- Deadlines most weeks
- Some repetitive tasks
Will there be jobs?
Limited prospectsFewer jobs than in most work will need filling by 2035.
Solid: measured. Dashed: forecast.
What does it pay?
About averagePay depends a lot on the country: from about €1,200 a month (Bulgaria) to €5,100 (Denmark), before tax.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see typical pay there, for people under 30, and compared with all jobs.
Among craft and related trades workers in the EU, women earn 26% less per hour than men. Craft and related trades workers · Eurostat
What do I need to study?
Upper secondary or vocationalUpper secondary or vocational training in mechanics and metal trades is the usual route.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see where to study and the official course finders.
Will AI change it?
Very littleAI could help with only small parts of the tasks.
Average task score 0.17 on a scale from 0 (AI can't do it) to 1 (AI could do it fully).
See the score for each of the 7 tasks
Based on what AI could technically do when assessed in 2025. It is not a forecast for a future year, and not a forecast of job losses. Scores for blacksmiths, hammersmiths and forging press workers. Source: ILO (2025), adapted (credits).