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Pastry Chef Job Outlook

Pastry chef jobs are hardly half-baked. Read what your options are.

Starting a Pastry Chef Job

In a pastry chef job, you'll be among the artists of the culinary world, baking and dressing each petit four or browning each creme brulee with the utmost care and attention to detail.

These days, carrying on this long-standing culinary tradition may mean loading dough into the oven at 3:00 a.m. for the day's first fresh bread, adding dollops of whipped cream to 100 slices of devil's food cake for an evening gala, or adding the final flourish of frosting to a wedding cake before it's wheeled out to the happy couple.

Wherever high quality pastries are served, pastry chefs can be found working behind the scenes.

The majority of pastry chef jobs are concentrated in the food service and hospitality-related industries. According to a recent PayScale.com survey, the top employers for pastry chefs are as follows:

• Restaurants
• Bakeries
• Hotels
• Food service
• Baking and Pastry
• Catering
• Hotel and Hospitality Management

The Life of a Pastry Chef

Pastry chef careers are often very physically demanding, requiring chefs to spend hours on their feet. The schedule can also be intense. Many chefs work 55 hours a week or more. Depending on the establishment and type of food being served, a pastry chef may keep extremely early, late or long hours due to the intensive nature of prep work most pastries and breads take.

Pastry Chef Salaries

Here's what you can expect to earn as a pastry chef:

Career	Median Annual Salary
Head Pastry Chef	$58,920
Baker	$34,950
Bakery Managers	$63,060

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2023

Where the baking jobs are

The BLS lists the top five states in the U.S. for bakers and pastry chefs. They also detail the cities and metropolitan areas that have the greatest number of employed bakers. The top ten metro areas in the U.S. are as follows:

The salary information listed is based on a national average, unless noted. Actual salaries may vary greatly based on specialization within the field, location, years of experience and a variety of other factors. National long-term projections of employment growth may not reflect local and/or short-term economic or job conditions, and do not guarantee actual job growth.