UK AI Exposure · Skilled trades occupations
Chefs
Chefs plan menus and prepare, or oversee the preparation of food in hotels, restaurants, clubs, private households and other establishments.
- Employees (UK)
- 152k
- Median annual pay
- £26,531
- Exposure score ?
- 1.4/10 Minimal direct 1.4 · with tools 6.2
- Wage exposure
- £565m
Higher exposure than 66% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means
Most of this role's work is still genuinely hard for AI to do. Physical presence, bodily skill, high-context judgment, direct human care - the things that don't translate to text.
If you're in this role, here's what to do now
You're not in the firing line today. But the frontier moves. Build enough AI fluency now that you can direct it for the parts of your work that could benefit. People in unexposed roles who understand AI become unusually valuable inside their organisations.
The tasks in this role, ranked by AI exposure
Below are the real tasks O*NET records for this occupation, sorted highest exposure first. "AI can do this" means a language model can already handle the task directly. "AI can help" means an LLM can assist but not replace. "Human work" means today's AI doesn't touch it. Importance is O*NET's 1–5 rating of how central each task is to the role.
5 of 26 tasks in this role are things an AI can already do today. Task list mapped via O*NET "First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers" (35-1012.00).
Record production, operational, and personnel data on specified forms.
Estimate ingredients and supplies required to prepare a recipe.
Assign duties, responsibilities, and work stations to employees in accordance with work requirements.
Perform various financial activities, such as cash handling, deposit preparation, and payroll.
Observe and evaluate workers and work procedures to ensure quality standards and service, and complete disciplinary write-ups.
Compile and balance cash receipts at the end of the day or shift.
Forecast staff, equipment, and supply requirements, based on a master menu.
Assess nutritional needs of patients, plan special menus, supervise the assembly of regular and special diet trays, and oversee the delivery of food trolleys to hospital patients.
Resolve customer complaints regarding food service.
Perform personnel actions, such as hiring and firing staff, providing employee orientation and training, and conducting supervisory activities, such as creating work schedules or organizing employee time sheets.
Train workers in food preparation, and in service, sanitation, and safety procedures.
Present bills and accept payments.
Purchase or requisition supplies and equipment needed to ensure quality and timely delivery of services.
Perform food preparation and serving duties, such as carving meat, preparing flambe dishes, or serving wine and liquor.
Supervise and participate in kitchen and dining area cleaning activities.
Recommend measures for improving work procedures and worker performance to increase service quality and enhance job safety.
Specify food portions and courses, production and time sequences, and workstation and equipment arrangements.
Control inventories of food, equipment, smallware, and liquor, and report shortages to designated personnel.
Analyze operational problems, such as theft and wastage, and establish procedures to alleviate these problems.
Schedule parties and take reservations.
Develop departmental objectives, budgets, policies, procedures, and strategies.
Conduct meetings and collaborate with other personnel for menu planning, serving arrangements, and related details.
Develop equipment maintenance schedules and arrange for repairs.
Inspect supplies, equipment, and work areas to ensure efficient service and conformance to standards.
Greet and seat guests, and present menus and wine lists.
Evaluate new products for usefulness and suitability.
Where a project with Alex usually starts for this role
These are the highest-importance tasks in this role that a language model can already handle directly. In a typical engagement the first wins come from building workflows around these, so they stop eating your team's time.
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Record production, operational, and personnel data on specified forms.
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Estimate ingredients and supplies required to prepare a recipe.
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Assign duties, responsibilities, and work stations to employees in accordance with work requirements.
Every role has three or four wedges like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days. Talk to Alex about a project →
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Methodology
This role's exposure score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 GPT task labels, aggregated by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 via ISCO-08 (ONS Vol 2 coding index) and US SOC 2010 (BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional. ASHE covers employees only, so self-employed workers are not counted.
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