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- Daily kitchen jobs such as preparing sandwiches or mopping floors
- your working environment will often be hot, busy and noisy
- Opportunities with experience to progress into cooking and front of house roles
As a kitchen assistant, you'll have the role of assisting the chef in food or drink prep, cleaning duties and unloading deliveries.
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
- Supporting chefs in a specific work section
- Washing, peeling and preparing food items
- Using a variety of kitchen equipment such as mixers, special knives and cutters
- Unloading deliveries
- Organising the storeroom
- Washing kitchen appliances, work surfaces, floors and walls
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
You'll usually work shifts, evenings, weekends and public holidays. You could work in a factory, at a restaurant, or in an NHS or private hospital. Your working environment may be noisy or hot and you may have to wear a uniform.
You'll need
This role requires good customer service skills, patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations, working well with others, business management skills, to work well with your hands, and thoroughness and attention to detail.
There are no set entry requirements, so you can apply directly to employers as a dish washer or general kitchen hand, then train while working. Experience of working in a kitchen, in hospitality or a catering service may also be helpful when applying.
It could help to get a qualification through a college course such as Introduction to Employment in the Hospitality Industry, General Cookery or Food Safety.
You could get into this job through an intermediate apprenticeship in catering.
CAREER PROSPECTS
With experience and training, you could become a trainee or junior chef, or progress into management. Or, you could move into bar work or food service.