Fitter and turner apprenticeships in New Zealand
Kaiwaihanga pūhiko me te mīhini
Fitters build, modify and maintain engines, turbines and machines used in construction, mining and manufacturing.
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How long did your apprenticeship take?
Put it on the record. Anonymous, about two minutes.
Add your timelineHow long is a fitter and turner apprenticeship, and what does it pay?
A fitter and turner apprenticeship in New Zealand takes 3–4 years. Once qualified, the job most commonly pays $69,000–$113,000 a year, starting at $54,000 a year and reaching $146,000 a year with experience. No registration is required for this trade.
- How long it takes
- 3–4 years
- Pay when starting out
- $54,000 a year
- Most common pay
- $69,000–$113,000 a year
- Experienced
- $146,000 a year
- School qualifications
- NCEA Level 2 if you are still at school.
- Registration
- Not required for this trade.
Those pay ranges are for the job, not for an apprentice. While you are training your legal floor is the training minimum wage of $19.16 an hour if you are 20 or over and your agreement requires at least 60 credits a year of industry training; otherwise it is the adult minimum of $23.95. Plenty of employers pay well above either. How apprentice pay works →
What do you need to start a fitter and turner apprenticeship?
An employer willing to take you on, first of all — everything else follows the job. NCEA Level 2 if you are still at school. Beyond that, what a fitter and turner apprenticeship asks for is:
- An apprenticeship in mechanical engineering.
- The New Zealand Certificate in Mechanical Engineering (Trade) (Level 4) or equivalent.
In every trade the order is the same: you find the employer first, then the training is arranged around the job. How to get an apprenticeship →
Weighing up the engineering trades side by side? Engineering apprenticeships compared →
Which New Zealand employers take on fitter and turner apprentices?
We list 4 of them, across 4 regions: Auckland, Canterbury, Waikato, Wellington. Each was verified against the company's own website, and each listing carries a name, a trade and a region only — this site holds no reviews or ratings of any of them.
Pay, duration and entry requirements quoted from Tahatū Career Navigator — Fitter and turner, read 2026-09-18. Wage floors from Employment New Zealand, checked 2026-11-01.