Also called: Commercial Kitchen Designer, Foodservice Facilities Consultant
Designs the layout of commercial kitchens for restaurants, hospitals, schools and stadiums, choosing equipment and planning how cooks and food move.
She sits with a hospital's chef to map how 2,000 meals a day travel from loading dock to patient trays. She draws the kitchen in CAD, choosing where ovens, sinks and walk-ins go so nobody walks too far. Then she checks her plan against health codes and the architect's drawings.
Estimate.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Often a degree in hospitality, interior design or engineering plus kitchen experience; FCSI membership.
Ways in: 4-year college, On-the-job training, Certification. Training cost: $60k – $150k.
Majors to look at: Hospitality Management, Interior Design, Industrial Engineering.
Growing about average. New restaurants, hospitals, schools and stadiums keep needing kitchen designs.
Medium risk for 10 years. CAD and AI layout tools speed up drawings, but understanding a chef's workflow and codes stays human.
Classes: Geometry, Drafting or CAD CTE, Culinary arts.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.