Occupation · SOC 35-1011
Chefs and Head Cooks Salary
Chefs and Head Cooks earn a median of $62,470 a year in the United States, which is $30.03 an hour. The mean is $66,700, and 200,040 people are employed in the occupation.
The full pay range
A single average hides most of what a reader wants to know. BLS publishes the whole distribution, so here it is: each row is the annual salary at that point in the pay range for chefs and head cooks.
Annual salary by percentile May 2025
| Percentile | Annual salary | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $37,900 | entry level, or a lower-paying region |
| 25th percentile | $48,440 | early career |
| Median (50th) | $62,470 | half earn more, half earn less |
| 75th percentile | $78,750 | experienced |
| 90th percentile | $98,560 | top of the field |
Common questions
How much do chefs and head cooks make?
The median salary for chefs and head cooks in the United States is $62,470 a year, which is $30.03 an hour. The mean is $66,700. Median and mean differ because a small number of very high earners pull the mean upward, so the median is the better answer to what the job typically pays.
What is the highest salary for a chefs and head cook?
The highest-paid 10 percent of chefs and head cooks earn $98,560 or more. That is the highest figure the survey publishes for this occupation; there is no reported maximum, and individual earnings above it are not broken out.
How many people work as chefs and head cooks in the US?
200,040, as of the May 2025 release. That covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed, who are not surveyed.
How much do chefs and head cooks make a month?
About $5,206 a month before tax, which is the published annual median of $62,470 divided by twelve. BLS publishes annual and hourly wages rather than monthly, so treat this as arithmetic on the annual figure, not a separate measurement.
Do chefs and head cooks make $100,000 a year?
Rarely, on the published data. Even the best-paid 10 percent earn $98,560 or more against a median of $62,470, so a $100,000 figure usually involves overtime, self-employment (which this survey does not cover), or a move into a different role.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure above is published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 release, for SOC code 35-1011. Nothing here is interpolated or averaged by this site. The survey covers wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments and excludes the self-employed. See how to read these figures for what that means in practice.