25 October 2026 · Head Chef
Kitchen porters keep every professional kitchen running. The duties, the pay, the difference from a kitchen assistant and why so many head chefs started on the pot wash.
A kitchen porter (KP) keeps a professional kitchen running: washing up, cleaning, taking in deliveries and doing basic food prep so the chefs can cook. It is the entry point into hospitality, needs no qualifications or experience, and nearly every restaurant, hotel, pub, school and hospital kitchen in the UK employs at least one. Adverts also use "kitchen assistant", "kitchen steward", "pot wash" and "kitchen hand" for roughly the same job.
Pots, pans, trays, plates, cutlery and glassware, usually through a commercial dishwasher plus a pot sink for the big items. During service this is relentless. Chefs cannot cook without clean pans, so the KP decides whether the kitchen keeps up.
Floors, walls, fridges, extraction filters, bins and drains, on a cleaning schedule that the Environmental Health Officer will ask to see. Deep cleans often happen at the end of the week or overnight.
Checking deliveries against the order, putting stock away, rotating it so the oldest is used first, and keeping dry stores and walk-in fridges tidy.
Peeling vegetables, picking herbs, portioning, making up salads or sandwiches in a canteen. In busy kitchens the KP who shows an interest ends up doing a lot of this, and it is how many move into cooking.
Emptying bins, separating recycling and food waste, keeping the bin area clean. Unglamorous but essential. A kitchen that fails a hygiene inspection usually fails it out the back.
In practice the titles overlap. "Kitchen porter" leans towards wash-up and cleaning in restaurants and hotels. "Kitchen assistant" is more common in schools, care homes, hospitals and contract catering, and tends to include more food prep and counter service. If the advert says kitchen assistant, expect to be helping cook as well as clean. Only Chefs lists kitchen assistant jobs separately from kitchen porter jobs, and it is worth searching both.
Most KP jobs are paid hourly. For anyone aged 21 or over, the National Living Wage (£12.71 an hour from April 2026) is the floor, which works out at about £25,000 a year on a 38-hour week. Our kitchen porter salary guide shows what adverts offer:
Many venues share tronc with the kitchen, KPs included, so ask. Meals on shift are near universal, and live-in KP jobs with accommodation are common in rural hotels and holiday parks.
Shifts follow service, so evenings and weekends are normal in restaurants and pubs, while schools, hospitals and staff canteens offer daytime, weekday hours. Part-time and student-friendly shifts are easy to find. Full time is usually 40 to 45 hours.
For anyone who wants to work in kitchens, yes, and it is one of the few jobs you can get this week with no CV to speak of. A striking number of head chefs started on the pot wash. The usual route is KP, then helping with prep, then a commis chef role within a year or so if you ask for it. Kitchens are short of chefs and will train a KP who wants to cook sooner than they will advertise.
It is also a perfectly good job in its own right. Head porters in large hotels manage teams, order chemicals and equipment, and are paid accordingly.
No. Most KP roles are advertised with no experience needed and training on the job.
Basic prep, yes: peeling, chopping, portioning. Cooking on the line is a commis chef's job, but KPs who want to learn usually get the chance.
None. A Level 2 Food Safety certificate helps and takes a few hours online.
A dishwasher only washes up. A kitchen porter washes up, cleans the kitchen, handles deliveries and helps with prep. UK adverts almost always say kitchen porter.
KP adverts are read on a phone, quickly, by people comparing several. Put the rate, the hours and the start date near the top. A template to adapt:
Kitchen Porter, [venue name], [town]. Add "immediate start", "part-time" or "evenings and weekends" if it applies; those are the words people search for.
One or two sentences on the venue and the kitchen team.
State the hourly rate, the hours per week, the shift pattern, the start date, meals on duty, tronc, holiday and whether there is a route into cooking for anyone who wants it. Finish with how to apply.
Post a kitchen porter job free on Only Chefs. State the hourly rate, the shift pattern and whether meals and tronc are included. Those three lines decide whether anyone applies.
Browse kitchen porter jobs across the UK, KP jobs in London or kitchen assistant jobs.