How to become a chef in the UK

6 minute read · 2026-08-28

Professional cooking is one of the last trades in Britain where you can walk in with no qualifications and be running a section within a couple of years. What you pay for that access is time: evenings, weekends and the days everyone else has off. If you go in knowing that, it is a career with real craft in it.

How a kitchen is actually organised

Most kitchens still use a version of the brigade. A kitchen porter washes up, preps vegetables and keeps the place clean. A commis chef is the trainee, working under someone on a section. A chef de partie runs a section: larder, sauce, grill, pastry. A sous chef runs the service and the team when the head chef is off, and the head chef owns the menu, the ordering, the gross profit and the rota.

The day splits into prep and service. Prep is the quiet, methodical half: stocks, sauces, butchery, portioning, mise en place laid out so that service is possible. Service is the loud half, where tickets arrive faster than you would like and everything has to leave the pass together and hot. Then you clean down, and the deep clean is not optional.

The sector matters as much as the grade. Gastropubs, hotels, restaurants, contract catering, schools, hospitals and care homes all need chefs, and the daytime sectors trade some creativity for hours you can live with.

Qualifications and what they cost

There is no licence to cook. What you must have is food safety knowledge, and in practice that means a Level 2 Food Safety in Catering certificate, available online for around £20 to £30 in a couple of hours, plus allergen training, which is a legal and reputational necessity given UK allergen labelling rules. Head chefs are usually expected to hold Level 3 food safety and understand HACCP.

Beyond that, the two recognised training routes are a college diploma in professional cookery at Level 2 or Level 3, or an apprenticeship. The Commis Chef Level 2 and Chef de Partie Level 3 apprenticeship standards let you earn while you learn, with the training funded through the apprenticeship levy rather than by you. Many good chefs have neither and learned entirely on section, which the industry accepts, though a diploma helps if you want to move into contract catering, schools or the public sector where the paperwork matters more.

Realistic pay

Commis chef roles are commonly advertised at around £24,000 to £28,000, chef de partie at £28,000 to £34,000, sous chef at £34,000 to £42,000 and head chef anywhere from £38,000 to £60,000 depending on covers, sector and whether the site is a pub, a hotel or a fine dining room. Contract catering, schools and care homes usually pay a little less at the top end but offer daytime hours, term time patterns and no split shifts. Where a service charge or tronc operates, ask exactly how it is distributed before you accept, and remember that trial shifts should be paid, since minimum wage law applies to work you actually do.

The hours and the rest of the truth

Fifty hour weeks are common and busy sites go beyond that. Split shifts, where you work lunch, go home for three hours and come back for dinner, eat your day without paying you for the gap. You will work most Friday and Saturday nights, Mothering Sunday, Valentine's Day and Christmas. Physically, expect burns, knife cuts, standing for ten hours, heat and a lot of noise. Turnover is high and kitchens have a reputation for hard drinking and harder language, though the better employers have moved a long way from that and increasingly advertise four day weeks to keep staff.

Getting in and getting on

The reliable way in is to apply directly, in person, to kitchens near you, ideally mid afternoon between services. Start as a kitchen porter if you must, because good porters who show interest get moved onto prep quickly. Say clearly that you are available on weekends, since that is what most head chefs are short of. Ask for a paid trial shift rather than a formal interview, because kitchens hire on how you behave next to a stove. If you are preparing for a proper interview as well, our guide to common UK interview questions is a sensible warm up.

Progression is fast for anyone reliable: commis to chef de partie in a year or two, sous within four or five, head chef after that. Sideways moves into development cookery, catering management, food production or teaching are all open once you have run a section.

Next step: browse current catering and hospitality vacancies, and check our candidate FAQ if you want to know what happens to your application after you send it.