Students with a Culinary Arts Degree Can Earn the Following Salaries

Students with a Culinary Arts Degree Can Earn the Following Salaries

Apr 6, 2015 | 10:00 am

Importance of Culinary Education

You want the advantage of having a proper educational background when applying for a kitchen job. This gets you noticed and puts your foot in the door so to speak. Usually, a degree of any kind connected with culinary education takes at least two years to complete. Culinary arts are a popular bachelor’s degree program, which prepares you thoroughly, provided it is taught well and comes from an accredited school. Larger culinary salaries will be possible provided that you take a 4-year program. Make sure that whatever degree you are taking, it is rich in specializations and business details. The more things you cover in your education, the more your employers will be impressed.

Salary Numbers

Your salary will depend on your position and past experience. The importance of having a good background in education is that it will land you a higher salary. According to the latest statistics, a kitchen manager earns about $45,000, provided he or she has a college degree. Another important reason why culinary education is important in order to get a good culinary salary is the fact that sometimes in the eyes of employers, they replace actual job experience. This might be a bad thing, if a student concentrates only on study and not on actual work experience. Honestly, four years of actual job experience in the kitchen is much better than four years of education, but that’s entirely your decision. The truth is that becoming a chef is quite possible without any actual job experience, just with your past educational degrees. Becoming an executive chef however is an entirely different matter. A $45,000 a year chef job requires both education and managerial work experience.

Statistics of the culinary arts degree and profession shows that jobs and salaries are related to position and responsibility.

Different Positions

A solid degree along with culinary background can pave the way for your success. The positions that will be available for you will be management positions and culinary practice positions. Regardless of whether you get a job that involves more practice or more management, the initial salary range could be between $30,000 and $50,000. Without educational background, you probably can’t hope to reach this payment range.

As a kitchen/culinary manager, your culinary salaries will be slightly higher than that of others practicing in the kitchen. Your work place will be colleges, schools, hospitals, and even major facilities where food is being delivered. The responsibilities include managing the kitchen, hiring new employees, firing the inefficient ones, and so on.

Inside the kitchen, you can work as a chef assistant, line cook, or a chef in charge. As a chef assistant, you will be cleaning, cooking and assisting with pretty much everything you are told. As the chef in charge, you do less practical work and are giving the orders and making the big decisions. In each of these three categories, you will receive respectively lower, average and big salaries.