Food and hospitality
What does a Hospitality and Service Worker do?
Feeding and looking after people, at pace, in person.
What the day is like
- Indoors, under a roof.
- Tools, materials, your body.
- People all day.
- Answerable for your own work.
The facts
- Pay
- $31,710 a year, median
- Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers, May 2025
- Usually needs
- No formal educational credential
- Weeks to months. Most people can start from where they are.
- Jobs
- +5% projected change in jobs, 2025-2035 projections
- Demand looks growing slowly
What is good about it
- You can be earning at it within months rather than after years of training.
- You answer for your own work rather than for other people, which suits more people than admit it.
- You can see what you did at the end of the day.
What people find hard about it
- Rude customers
- Unsocial hours
- Pay that depends on tips
Easy to enter anywhere in the world; the pay only improves with responsibility.
Will machines take this job?
What machines will do to this work. Ordering and stock control are automating; cooking and service in a busy room are not.
How to find out whether it suits you
Work a few shifts front of house and see how you feel at closing time.
Would this actually suit you?
CareerDNA works that out from what you choose rather than from what you say about yourself: two minutes of choosing between real jobs, a few puzzles, and some questions about what you are like. It is free, it saves as you go, and it will tell you plainly where the answer is thin.