Food Preparation and Serving · Holland code RCE
Cooks, Fast Food
Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment.
Also called: Cook, Grill Cook, Line Cook, Pizza Cook, Cook Line Worker, Fast Food Cook, Food Cook, Fry Cook.
O*NET 35-2011.00
At a glance
- US median annual pay
- $30,890
- Middle half earn $27,260 to $37,260. BLS OEWS, May 2025.
- Preparation needed
- Job Zone 2 of 5
- Some preparation. Zone 1 is little or none; zone 5 is graduate-level.
What the work involves
The tasks workers in this occupation rate as most important, from the O*NET survey.
- Read food order slips or receive verbal instructions as to food required by patron, and prepare and cook food according to instructions.
- Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas.
- Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils.
- Operate large-volume cooking equipment, such as grills, deep-fat fryers, or griddles.
- Take food and drink orders and receive payment from customers.
- Cook the exact number of items ordered by each customer, working on several different orders simultaneously.
- Prepare specialty foods, such as pizzas, fish and chips, sandwiches, or tacos, following specific methods that usually require short preparation time.
- Verify that prepared food meets requirements for quality and quantity.
Skills and knowledge it leans on
Skills
- Active Listening3.0 / 5
- Speaking2.9 / 5
- Reading Comprehension2.8 / 5
- Critical Thinking2.6 / 5
- Monitoring2.6 / 5
- Writing2.1 / 5
Knowledge areas
- Food Production3.8 / 5
- Customer and Personal Service3.7 / 5
- English Language3.3 / 5
- Production and Processing2.9 / 5
- Administration and Management2.5 / 5
- Mathematics2.4 / 5
Importance ratings on O*NET’s 1 to 5 scale. Higher means the occupation depends on it more.
Who tends to enjoy it
How strongly this occupation draws on each of the six Holland interest types, which is the same profile the career interests test compares you against.
- Realistic89
- Investigative6
- Artistic14
- Social24
- Enterprising39
- Conventional55
The same work abroad
Other countries classify jobs differently, so these are the closest matches through the international ISCO-08 standard, not exact equivalents.
European occupation titles (ESCO)
- cook · DE Koch/Köchin · FR cuisinier/cuisinière
- quick service restaurant crew member · DE Imbissmitarbeiter/Imbissmitarbeiterin · FR équipier polyvalent de restauration rapide/équipière polyvalente de restauration rapide
Closest UK occupation groups (SOC 2020)
- Cooks (5435)47,500 employed
- Catering and bar managers (5436)75,500 employed
- Kitchen and catering assistants (9263)424,300 employed
Employment is the UK Annual Population Survey for April 2025 to March 2026, all workers in the group, which can be broader than this one occupation.
Japan
Japan classifies jobs in its own way. The closest category that names the same work is “飲食物調理従事者”, which may be narrower or broader than this occupation.
- Median monthly pay
- ¥242,200
- Middle half earn ¥202,900 to ¥299,700 a month.
- Workers in the category
- 439,320
- Regular employees in firms of ten or more.
Scheduled monthly pay before tax, excluding overtime and bonuses, so it is not comparable to the annual figures above. Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2025, via e-Stat, under the Japanese Government Standard Terms of Use. The category match was made by hand.
Pay across Europe, for the whole group
Median annual earnings of all employees in “Elementary occupations”. This is the broad ISCO group this occupation falls in, not the occupation itself, so treat it as context for the wage level, not as a salary for this job.
| Country | Median pay |
|---|---|
| Belgium | €29,579 |
| Sweden | €28,305 |
| Austria | €27,215 |
| Netherlands | €24,577 |
| Ireland | €24,331 |
| Germany | €22,430 |
| Italy | €22,101 |
| France | €21,664 |
| Spain | €17,502 |
| Portugal | €9,424 |
| Poland | €7,534 |
Eurostat Structure of Earnings Survey, businesses with ten or more employees outside public administration, in euro and not adjusted for the cost of living. Reference years differ between sources: the US, Japan and Europe figures on this page come from different survey years, so compare them as rough levels, not to the euro or yen.
Exposure to AI
This occupation sits in the lower third of the 774 occupations scored, with an exposure score of -0.71. The scores are standardized across those occupations, so 0 is the average and a score of 1 is about one standard deviation above it.
Our note on reading it: the dataset links AI applications to the abilities that occupations require, so the score reflects overlap between the two. It is a comparison between occupations, not a forecast about jobs. It does not say whether exposure means tasks are replaced or workers get more done with the tools, and it says little about one employer or one role.
Source: Felten, E., Raj, M., & Seamans, R. (2021). Occupational, industry, and geographic exposure to artificial intelligence: A novel dataset and its potential uses. Strategic Management Journal, 42(12), 2195-2217. Matched to this page by 6-digit SOC code (35-2011).
Related careers
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