---
title: "Cook, Fast Food"
description: "Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-fast-food"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Cook, Fast Food

**Category:** Food Preparation and Serving Related · **SOC code:** 35-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 35-2011.00

Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment.

Also advertised as: Cook; Deep Fat Fryer Operator; Fast Food Cook; Fry Cook; Fryer; Grill Cook; Line Cook; Pizza Cook.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $30,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $14.85/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $22,580 to $42,910, with the middle half between $27,260 and $37,260
- **Total US employment:** 641,070
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -13.5% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 82,100 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 49/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 641,070 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $22,580 |
| 25th | $27,260 |
| 50th (median) | $30,890 |
| 75th | $37,260 |
| 90th | $42,910 |
| Mean (average) | $32,390 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| HI | $48,120 | $43,765 | Not published by BLS |
| DC | $44,670 | $40,646 | 2,760 |
| CA | $42,050 | $37,979 | 124,440 |
| WA | $39,120 | $36,556 | 9,020 |
| NH | $38,590 | $37,047 | 1,330 |
| VT | $38,230 | $39,027 | 640 |
| OR | $37,880 | $36,648 | 4,300 |
| MA | $37,870 | $35,809 | Not published by BLS |
| CO | $36,900 | $35,807 | 9,220 |
| ME | $36,350 | $37,455 | 1,470 |
| NY | $35,770 | $33,145 | 11,710 |
| RI | $35,230 | $34,445 | 1,210 |
| CT | $34,980 | $33,761 | 3,630 |
| IL | $34,960 | $34,975 | 13,430 |
| MN | $34,120 | $34,597 | 5,190 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-fast-food/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cook-fast-food.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 669,500 in the 2024–2034 base year to 579,200 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 90,300 jobs, or -13.5%. Declining: -13.5% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 82,100 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 58.0% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 42.0% |

## What the work involves

- Operate large-volume cooking equipment, such as grills, deep-fat fryers, or griddles.
- Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils.
- Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas.
- Cook the exact number of items ordered by each customer, working on several different orders simultaneously.
- Clean, stock, and restock workstations and display cases.
- Verify that prepared food meets requirements for quality and quantity.
- Pre-cook items, such as bacon, to prepare them for later use.
- Read food order slips or receive verbal instructions as to food required by patron, and prepare and cook food according to instructions.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Administration and Management — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.33 |
| C — Conventional | 4.32 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.36 |
| S — Social | 2.42 |
| A — Artistic | 1.85 |
| I — Investigative | 1.38 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 81.6 |
| ESTJ | 79.4 |
| ISFJ | 74.4 |
| ESFJ | 66.5 |
| ESTP | 63.1 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Cook, Short Order](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-short-order) — median $35,880
- [Cook, Restaurant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-restaurant) — median $37,390
- [Food Preparation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-preparation-worker) — median $35,320
- [Baker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/baker) — median $37,160
- [Cook, Institution and Cafeteria](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-institution-and-cafeteria) — median $37,450
- [Fast Food and Counter Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fast-food-and-counter-worker) — median $31,200
- [Butcher and Meat Cutter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/butcher-and-meat-cutter) — median $40,140
- [Food Cooking Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-cooking-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $41,590
- [Barista](https://nuecareer.com/careers/barista) — median $31,200
- [Food Batchmaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-batchmaker) — median $42,290

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cook-fast-food