The Datum Report

Occupation 1222 · Managers, directors and senior officials

Restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors

Half of full-time restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors in the UK earn more than £31,692 a year, and half earn less.

Restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors plan, direct and co-ordinate the catering services of restaurants, hotels and large-scale catering services within other organisations.

How people enter it

There are no set entry routes. Entry is possible with a variety of academic qualifications and/or relevant experience. Larger restaurants and catering chains offer managerial trainee schemes, entry to which may be based on a variety of qualifications and/or relevant experience. Off and on-the-job training is provided. Various vocational qualifications are available at levels 2 to 4.

What the work involves

• plans catering services and directs staff
• decides on range and quality of meals and beverages to be provided
• discusses customer’s requirements for special occasions
• purchases or directs the purchasing of supplies and arranges for preparation of accounts
• verifies that quality of food, beverages and waiting service is as required, that kitchen and dining areas are kept clean and appropriate hygiene standards are maintained in compliance with statutory requirements
• plans and arranges food preparation in collaboration with other staff and organises the provision of waiting or counter staff
• checks that supplies are properly used and accounted for to prevent wastage and loss and to keep within budget limit
• determines staffing, financial, material and other short- and long-term requirements

Also called

Café owner · Operations manager (catering) · Restaurant manager · Shop manager (take-away food shop)

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for restaurant and catering establishment managers and proprietors, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 8 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Hotel and accommodation managers and proprietors · Leisure and sports managers and proprietors · Publicans and managers of licensed premises · Travel agency managers and proprietors