diet cook
Diet cooks prepare and present meals according to special dietary or nutrition needs.
diet cook diet cooks prepare and present meals according to special dietary or nutrition needs. The role shows moderate AI exposure (0.46 on a 0-1 scale) — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. The most in-demand skills for the role include nutrition, composition of diets, comply with food safety and hygiene, identify nutritional properties of food, store raw food materials.
Pay in the UK
UK: median £24,228 a year for Cooks (ONS ASHE 2025, full-time)
Middle half of full-time jobs: £20,334 to £27,831 a year
UK jobs are grouped differently; this is the closest UK occupation group (ONS SOC 2020 5435). ONS rates this estimate precise. 2025 provisional figures; ONS revises them a year later. Source: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Open Government Licence)
Pay in India (occupation group)
Average monthly earnings of salaried employees in the occupation group “Service and sales workers” in India, from the Government of India's Periodic Labour Force Survey (January–December 2025). It covers everyone in this group, not only diet cook, and it is not US pay converted to rupees.
Source: MoSPI (Government of India), Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2025, Table 51 — average wage/salary earnings of regular wage/salaried employees, NCO-2015 division 5. Official India data gives one average per occupation group: there are no official India figures for single careers, experience levels or cities. Read the report
Top skills
Knowledge you'll build
- English Language
- Food Production
- Customer and Personal Service
- Mathematics
- Administration and Management
- Production and Processing
- Public Safety and Security
- Education and Training
What you'd actually do
- Monitor and record food temperatures to ensure food safety.
- Cook foodstuffs according to menus, special dietary or nutritional restrictions, or numbers of portions to be served.
- Rotate and store food supplies.
- Wash pots, pans, dishes, utensils, or other cooking equipment.
- Apportion and serve food to facility residents, employees, or patrons.
- Clean and inspect galley equipment, kitchen appliances, and work areas to ensure cleanliness and functional operation.
Tools & technology you'd use
Frequently asked questions
What does diet cook do?
Diet cooks prepare and present meals according to special dietary or nutrition needs.
What skills does diet cook need?
The most in-demand skills for this role include nutrition, composition of diets, comply with food safety and hygiene, identify nutritional properties of food, store raw food materials, receive kitchen supplies. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.
Will AI replace diet cook?
Our AI-durability model gives diet cook a score of 0.46 on a 0-1 scale (higher = more exposure). That places it at moderate AI exposure — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. Learning to work with AI tools rather than against them is the path forward.