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Choosing a career in catering

Making a difference to the lives of young people in Derbyshire is just one of the rewards of being part of our catering service. There are lots of other good reasons why choosing a career in catering could be right for you.


View our catering roles

Our catering service takes pride in creating and sustaining a motivated, skilled, diverse, and outward-looking workforce capable of delivering a high-quality service both now and in the future.

Why not be part of something special and join our award-winning team supporting and helping meet the health and nutritional needs of our young people?

We're always looking to add enthusiastic and experienced people to our teams. We also offer a range of training opportunities and apprenticeships.

There are lots of roles to choose from, including:

  • relief catering assistant
  • catering assistant
  • catering supervisor
  • peripatetic catering supervisor

If you're looking for a rewarding career, these roles can be just the start. Senior positions include:

  • caterer
  • catering development officer (specialising in marketing, menu development, procurement, or training)
  • operational catering manager
  • catering service manager

So, if you want to be part of our first-class team of professionals making a difference to people's lives every single day, we want to hear from you.

Variety

Members of the catering team, many of whom have worked with us for decades, are helping feed young people in education establishments in over 300 locations across Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and Derby.

Flexible working

Roles in our catering service can offer flexible hours. They often fit around school hours, which may suit you better than the usual 9am to 5pm. Many posts are term-time only, which can help with childcare.

Career progression and promotion

School catering brings its own challenges, but the work you do on a day-to-day basis is varied. There's also scope to progress your career and open doors to several different job paths.

Catering supervisor

As catering supervisor, you'll be responsible for the day-to-day management of the kitchen including preparation, cooking, service, and performing clerical duties via a digital management system.

We want to help make good lunchtime memories for our customers, so it's essential that you can demonstrate an attitude which is appropriate to the school environment.

Catering assistants

Catering assistants work as a valued member of our dedicated kitchen teams. You'll be supporting the kitchen supervisor in all areas of the service. Tasks include food preparation, cooking, portion control, allergen compliance, and preparing the dining room for service.

Our catering assistants are our point of contact with our hungry customers. Whilst serving meals to our customers, all team members help ensure that food hygiene, and health and safety regulations are followed.

We want to help make good lunchtime memories for our customers so it is essential that you can demonstrate an attitude which is appropriate to the school environment, so why not start here.

Qualifications and experience

Although previous experience in a catering or hospitality setting does help, no formal qualifications or experience are needed for a lot of catering-related jobs. We provide you with the training you need.

We're delighted to be able to offer all our catering employees the opportunity to apply for qualifications in food production and cooking. Most are nationally recognised qualifications, and an excellent way to develop your catering knowledge and cooking skills.

Job satisfaction

Working within the catering service is very rewarding. Knowing that your job is helping make a difference to young people's lives can give you a real sense of achievement.

Benefits and discounts

Our catering service is a traded service. We want all our employees to feel valued and rewarded fairly and here you can find out about the benefits that we offer employees.

Employees have access to a range of benefits and discounts including:

  • paid a fair and competitive salary
  • enrolled in the Local Government Pension Scheme
  • trade union membership
  • health and wellbeing benefits, assessments, and programmes
  • benefits through Our Derbyshire Reward Scheme

If you value good food, you're looking to join a dynamic team and feel you can make a difference, are eager to embrace change, and have the skills and experience to develop, then we'd like to hear from you.