Chef apprenticeships in New Zealand
Pūkenga tao kai
Chefs oversee the preparation and cooking of food, and manage menu planning, supplies and kitchen staff.
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How long did your apprenticeship take?
Put it on the record. Anonymous, about two minutes.
Add your timelineHow long is a chef apprenticeship, and what does it pay?
A chef apprenticeship in New Zealand takes 0–1 year. Once qualified, the job most commonly pays $25–$37 an hour, starting at $24 an hour and reaching $45 an hour with experience. No registration is required for this trade.
- How long it takes
- 0–1 year
- Pay when starting out
- $24 an hour
- Most common pay
- $25–$37 an hour
- Experienced
- $45 an hour
- School qualifications
- NCEA Level 2 may be useful, but is not specifically required.
- Registration
- Not required for this trade.
Those pay ranges are for the job, not for an apprentice. While you are training your legal floor is the training minimum wage of $19.16 an hour if you are 20 or over and your agreement requires at least 60 credits a year of industry training; otherwise it is the adult minimum of $23.95. Plenty of employers pay well above either. How apprentice pay works →
What do you need to start a chef apprenticeship?
An employer willing to take you on, first of all — everything else follows the job. NCEA Level 2 may be useful, but is not specifically required. Beyond that, what a chef apprenticeship asks for is:
- Experience in similar work is what employers look for first.
- The New Zealand Certificate in Cookery (Level 3) or (Level 4) is optional but common.
In every trade the order is the same: you find the employer first, then the training is arranged around the job. How to get an apprenticeship →
Which New Zealand employers take on chef apprentices?
We list 4 of them, across 2 regions: Auckland, Wellington. Each was verified against the company's own website, and each listing carries a name, a trade and a region only — this site holds no reviews or ratings of any of them.
Pay, duration and entry requirements quoted from Tahatū Career Navigator — Chef, read 2026-09-18. Wage floors from Employment New Zealand, checked 2026-11-01.