Hospitality jobs you can get at 16 (and at 18)

Honest answer up front: hospitality hires at 16 and it hires an awful lot of people at 16, but those jobs get found locally rather than on a jobs board - FIRSTJOBZ lists roles for over-18s. So treat this page as your map: what's genuinely open at 16 and 17, how people actually find it, then what unlocks the day you turn 18 and the board that's waiting for you when it does.

What's genuinely open at 16 and 17

Start with the distinction that matters more than your birthday: whether you've passed school leaving age. If you're 16 but still in year 11, you count as a child worker and the rules are tight. Once you're past it - broadly the end of year 11 - you become a young worker, most of hospitality opens up and you can work full-time up to 40 hours a week. In England you're in some form of education or training until 18 anyway, which runs alongside a job rather than instead of one.

While you're still school-aged, the shape of the job is set by law. You can't work during school hours, before 7am or after 7pm. Term time is capped at 12 hours a week: 2 hours on school days and Sundays, with up to 8 hours on a Saturday at 15 or 16 (5 hours at 14). School holidays go up to 35 hours a week at 15 to 16, again 8 hours a day except Sundays which stay at 2. You get an hour's break after 4 hours of work plus a 2-week stretch of the holidays completely free of work each year. Some councils want your employer to register the arrangement, so don't be thrown if a work permit gets mentioned. None of it is a barrier. It's the legal shape of a classic weekend job.

So where do the yeses cluster? Kitchens are the biggest and least obvious one. Kitchen porter work - washing up, prepping, keeping the place spotless - takes 16-year-olds all the time and it's the traditional first rung of a cooking career. Cafés, coffee shops and bakeries hire at 16 for counter work with the bonus of civilised finishing times. Hotels take on 16-year-olds for housekeeping, breakfast service and food running. Contract catering in schools, colleges and staff restaurants is quietly one of the friendliest employers of under-18s going, with daytime hours that fit around education properly.

Pubs and restaurants will hire you too, just not for everything. You can clear tables, run food, wait on, collect glasses and work in the kitchen. What's different is the alcohol: in a licensed venue, every sale made by someone under 18 has to be specifically approved by a responsible person, so most places simply keep under-18s off the bar rather than build a system around it. Treat it as a question worth asking rather than a door that's shut. Plenty of venues will take you on the floor at 16 then move you behind the bar at 18.

Two practical things. Late finishes are a grey area: once you're past school leaving age, under-18s normally can't work between 10pm and 6am, but hotels and catering sit on the list of exceptions, so a late shift here is legally possible where it wouldn't be elsewhere. Plenty of employers don't bother using it. Second, bring a parent or guardian in early, because some want written consent on file for under-18s.

Pay-wise, your legal minimum at 16 or 17 is £8.00 an hour. Some pub and restaurant groups pay one rate for everybody regardless of age, which makes them the best-value employers on the street at your age. Tips are the other half of the story. Our hospitality pay guide explains how they work now the law has changed and shows the full wage ladder.

How those jobs actually get found

Here's the bit most articles skip. Under-18 hospitality work is a face-to-face market, so you find it with your feet rather than a search box. That's why it isn't on our board: FIRSTJOBZ carries over-18 roles, so at 16 or 17 your hunting happens locally.

Walk in and ask. Mid-afternoon, between the lunch rush and the evening one, is when a manager can actually talk to you. Printed CV, thirty seconds of "I'm looking for weekend work, are you taking anyone on?", a thank you either way. Independents barely ever advertise. They hire whoever asked at the right moment.

Use the school and college routes. Work experience placements, the careers adviser who knows which hotels take students every year, catering courses with kitchens attached, the contract caterer already feeding your own canteen.

Then the local noticeboard in all its forms: the card taped inside a café window, the community Facebook group, the pub's own Instagram story, your cousin who already works Saturdays. Family and mates are the biggest source of first jobs there has ever been. Tell everyone you're looking. Someone's manager is short on a Sunday.

What unlocks at 18 and where FIRSTJOBZ comes in

Your eighteenth birthday changes four things at once, no promotion needed.

The money moves first. Your legal minimum jumps to £10.85 an hour the day you turn 18 - same venue, same rota, higher floor. If your employer already pays a single all-ages rate you won't feel the step, but everywhere else it's automatic.

The bar opens second. At 18 you can serve alcohol without a responsible person approving each sale, which is the single biggest change in this sector. Whole categories of job that couldn't say yes at 16 suddenly can: bar work, cocktail work, cellar duties, festival and event bars, late-night venues. A personal licence also starts at 18, so if you fancy running a place eventually, this is the birthday the career properly starts on.

The rota opens third. Adult working-time rules replace the young-worker limits, so late closes, overnight hotel shifts, festival weekends and the New Year's Eve shifts that pay best all become available. Those unsociable hours are exactly where premiums and the fattest tips tend to live.

The fourth change is the one this whole page has been building towards. Everything listed on FIRSTJOBZ is an over-18 role, so from your eighteenth birthday you can browse live hospitality jobs and apply to every one of them. Two years of quiet local graft turns into a shortlist you can work through in an evening.

Arrive at 18 ready

The gap between an 18-year-old who gets called back and one who doesn't is built entirely in the two years before it. Four things stack up in that window.

Experience, measured in months rather than job titles. Six solid months of Saturdays says more than a summer spent in three different places. Stay somewhere long enough to be trusted with something.

References, meaning a named manager who will pick up the phone and say you were reliable. Ask their permission before you leave and save the number. That one contact quietly unlocks every application you make afterwards.

Training you collected for free. Food hygiene, allergen awareness, barista skills, first aid, cellar knowledge. You never need a certificate before you apply, because your employer has to make sure anyone handling food is properly instructed for the job. Anything picked up on paid time is a line on your CV somebody else would have paid for.

Availability, honestly stated. Managers hire the person who can do Friday night. If you can genuinely hack a late finish or a bank holiday, say so, because it moves you up the pile faster than any qualification. Get your National Insurance number filed away too. It usually turns up around your sixteenth birthday and employers ask for it when you start. Our no-experience guide shows how to turn a thin CV into a first yes.

So don't sit around waiting for your eighteenth. At 16 there's real work, real money and real experience going in kitchens, cafés and hotels. You find it by walking in and asking. Start where the door is open now, bank the shifts, keep the reference. The rest of the series lives at the hospitality hub and the board will be here on the morning you turn 18.