What a Kitchen Porter payslip looks like
A typical UK kitchen porter payslip is paid weekly and shows a basic pay line at the top. A kitchen porter handles washing-up, cleaning and basic food preparation, keeping a commercial kitchen running. The line items below depend on grade, shift pattern and contractual additions, but the structure usually mirrors HMRC's recommended payslip layout: a payments block, a deductions block, a year-to-date column, and a net pay summary.
Common employers in this occupation include restaurants, hotels, pubs. Each employer runs payroll slightly differently, but the underlying PAYE computation against tax code 1257L and Class 1 National Insurance is identical across the UK (excluding Scotland for income tax). The biggest variability between two kitchen porter payslips at the same gross will be in the additions block: Hourly pay anchored to the National Living Wage, often on casual or zero-hours terms, so many porters pay little tax. Where the venue tronc includes back-of-house, a share appears as a separate PAYE-taxable, usually NI-free line.
Year-to-date columns are critical to verify on this role because the additions and salary sacrifice items change month to month. If your YTD gross divided by months elapsed in the tax year does not match your expected annual run-rate, that is the single best signal that something is mis-coded.
Applies to some of this work
Tips, gratuities, service charges and troncs and kitchen porter pay
Your job is the one the Act changed most. Kitchen porters were routinely left out of troncs on the reasoning that customers tip the people they meet. Since 1 October 2024 the duty has been to allocate all qualifying tips fairly between the workers at the place of business, and the Code lists front of house against backroom as a factor to weigh rather than an answer to assume. You can still be given a smaller share or none, but the employer has to state the factors in the written policy, and an exclusion that appears nowhere in writing is the thing to put in a records request.
- Tipping Act main duties in force
- 1 October 2024
- Statutory Code of Practice in force
- 1 October 2024
Educational only. Whether this reaches your own pay turns on your contract and how you are engaged, and tribunal and claim time limits are short. Check the limit that applies to you before relying on a date.
Tips, gratuities, service charges and troncs: the rates, the payslip lines, what goes wrong and the 16 primary sources. Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023, Part 2B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, in force 1 October 2024.
Applies to some of this work
Agricultural wages orders and the accommodation offset and kitchen porter pay
A room above the kitchen counts for £11.10 a day and free staff meals count for nothing, which is the reverse of how a live-in season is usually described at the interview. The offset also runs in whole days: regulation 16(2) says living accommodation is provided for a day only if it is provided for the whole of that day, so on a seasonal contract the day you arrive and the day you leave earn the employer no offset at all. Any charge for the room above £11.10 a day comes straight off the pay measured against the minimum wage, and a separate utilities charge is added to the room charge rather than judged on its own.
- National Minimum Wage accommodation offset
- £11.10 a day, £77.70 a week
- When the offset counts for a day
- Only a whole day
Educational only. Whether this reaches your own pay turns on your contract and how you are engaged, and tribunal and claim time limits are short. Check the limit that applies to you before relying on a date.
Agricultural wages orders and the accommodation offset: the rates, the payslip lines, what goes wrong and the 32 primary sources. National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 and the devolved agricultural wages orders, in force 1 April 2026 for the rates and offset.
Applies to some of this work
Term time only pay and holiday pay for part-year workers and kitchen porter pay
Two different doors into the same regulation, and school catering is only one of them. A porter in a school kitchen on an annual salary spread over twelve months is in the position HMRC describes when it lists school catering among salaried hours work. A porter taking shifts at a hotel or a restaurant is more likely to be an irregular hours worker instead, since the test in regulation 15F(1)(a) asks whether the contract makes the paid hours wholly or mostly variable from one pay period to the next. It is that second door, and not the school one, that permits an uplift with every payment.
- Statutory paid annual leave
- 5.6 weeks
- Accrual rate for irregular hours and part-year workers
- 12.07%
Educational only. Whether this reaches your own pay turns on your contract and how you are engaged, and tribunal and claim time limits are short. Check the limit that applies to you before relying on a date.
Term time only pay and holiday pay for part-year workers: the rates, the payslip lines, what goes wrong and the 17 primary sources. Working Time Regulations 1998, regulations 13A, 15B, 15F, 16 and 16A, as amended by the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 (S.I. 2023/1426), and Harpur Trust v Brazel [2022] UKSC 21, in force leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, with Brazel decided 20 July 2022.
Depends how you are engaged
Deductions from wages, and the retail 10% cap and kitchen porter pay
Washing up and prep involve no transaction with anybody, so on an ordinary shift sections 17 to 22 do not reach you and no ceiling limits what comes off. That is not the end of it, twice over. Section 13 still means nothing is lawfully taken without a statutory requirement, a written contract term you were handed a copy of first, or your agreement in writing beforehand. And the definition applies whether or not on a regular basis, so covering the counter for one lunchtime brings that work inside it.
- Cap on a retail shortage deduction
- One tenth of gross pay
- The sections that name the occupation
- Sections 17 to 22
Educational only. Whether this reaches your own pay turns on your contract and how you are engaged, and tribunal and claim time limits are short. Check the limit that applies to you before relying on a date.
Deductions from wages, and the retail 10% cap: the rates, the payslip lines, what goes wrong and the 28 primary sources. Employment Rights Act 1996, Part II, sections 13 to 27, with sections 17 to 22 for workers in retail employment, in force 22 August 1996, with the two year backstop from 1 July 2015 and the hours line on the payslip from 6 April 2019.
Kitchen Porter salary bands (UK 2024)
ONS ASHE 2024 full-time gross pay. Net figures use 2026/27 PAYE bands and assume 5% of qualifying earnings (£6,240–£50,270) under a net-pay arrangement — before income tax, but not before National Insurance.
| Band | Gross / year | Net / year | Net / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25th percentile | £18,500 | £16,349 | £1,362 |
| Median | £21,500 | £18,389 | £1,532 |
| 75th percentile | £23,500 | £19,749 | £1,646 |
Common deductions for a Kitchen Porter
- PAYE income tax.Calculated against tax code 1257L. Cumulative coding means refunds can appear if you start mid-year.
- National Insurance (Class 1).8% between £12,570 and £50,270 of annual earnings, then 2% above. Period-by-period method is standard.
- Pension.Auto-enrolment minimum 5% employee on qualifying earnings (£6,240 - £50,270), unless your employer runs a more generous scheme such as the NHS, Teachers Pension or Civil Service alpha.
- Salary sacrifice patterns.Common in this occupation: cycle-to-work, electric-car salary sacrifice, additional pension contributions, and where applicable workplace nursery vouchers (still tax-efficient via pre-existing schemes).
- Union or professional body.Tax-deductible for HMRC-listed bodies. Kitchen Porters commonly hold subscriptions covered by section 344 ITEPA 2003 (List 3).
Kitchen Porter payslip FAQ
What is the average Kitchen Porter salary in the UK in 2024?
According to ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2024 for SOC code 9264, the median full-time gross annual salary for a Kitchen Porter in the UK is approximately £21,500. The 25th percentile sits at £18,500 and the 75th at £23,500.
What is take-home pay on a median Kitchen Porter salary?
On £21,500 gross with the standard 1257L tax code and 5% of qualifying earnings into a net-pay pension, monthly take-home is approximately £1,532 after PAYE income tax, Class 1 employee National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension. Actual figures vary if you have student loan, salary sacrifice or a non-cumulative tax code.
What is unusual about a Kitchen Porter payslip?
Hourly pay anchored to the National Living Wage, often on casual or zero-hours terms, so many porters pay little tax. Where the venue tronc includes back-of-house, a share appears as a separate PAYE-taxable, usually NI-free line.
Which tax code should a Kitchen Porter typically be on?
Most people in this role on standard PAYE will see 1257L. Check the prefix and suffix carefully: a K-prefix means deductions exceed your allowance (often after a bonus or P11D benefit), 0T means you have no allowance left at this employer, and BR means basic rate on the whole job (common in second jobs).
Salary estimates: ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2024, full-time gross annual pay by SOC 2020 occupation. Figures rounded to nearest £100.