It has been thoroughly demonstrated previously that lasers hold the ability to modulate surface properties of polymers with the result being utilization of such lasers in both research and industry. With increased applications of wettability techniques within industries there is greater need of predicting related characteristics, post laser processing, since such work evaluates the effectiveness of these surface treatments. This paper details the use of a Synrad CO2 laser marking system to surface roughen polymeric materials, namely: nylon 6,6; nylon 12, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyethylene (PE). These laser-modified surfaces have been analyzed using 3D surface profilometry to ascertain the surface roughness with the wettability characteristics obtained using a wettability goniometer. From the surface roughness results, for each of the samples, generic wettability characteristics arising from laser surface roughening is discussed