Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations

The Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations major group (SOC 35-0000) contains 17 distinct occupations in the BLS Standard Occupational Classification system, each measured individually by the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey in May 2025. Combined U.S. OEWS employment across this group is approximately 13,680,760 estimated jobs in covered establishments for occupations where employment is separately reported. The equal-weighted mean of the published occupation medians inside this group is $37,710. It is a derived comparison benchmark, not the group’s worker-level mean or median and not a career-stage estimate.

The published medians span from $62,470 for Chefs and Head Cooks to $30,890 for Cooks, Fast Food, a 2.0× endpoint ratio. The ranking establishes those occupation-level values but does not identify the effects of credentials, seniority, responsibility, or industry.

Use this page as a launch pad: each row links to the occupation's national profile, with percentile boundaries, local-area rows, projections, and education assignments where the relevant source publishes them. OEWS wages include straight-time pay, tips, commissions, incentive pay, and production bonuses. Employer benefits, overtime premiums, stock compensation, and nonproduction bonuses sit outside the estimate; their value varies too much to apply one site-wide uplift. For career planning, pair these medians with the 10th-to-90th percentile spread on each occupation's page so you understand the observed wage distribution before committing to an educational or certification pathway. Those percentile boundaries are not an individual's guaranteed floor or ceiling.