Lead Cook

Are you a passionate cook with a desire to work in a small team creating delicious, hearty meals? Do you love the buzz of a busy kitchen and want your work to make a difference to young people’s school trip experiences? Join the Robinwood Activity Centre team as our new Lead Cook at Barhaugh Hall, near Alston.

The Role
As a Lead Cook you will be at the heart of the kitchen, reporting to the Catering Manager and supporting them to deliver high quality meals and a smooth-running kitchen. You’ll lead by example and motivate a small, friendly catering team and ensure our visiting children and teachers enjoy nutritious, tasty meals throughout their stay.

Key responsibilities:

Supporting the Catering Manager in all aspects of kitchen operations
Leading and motivating the kitchen team during shifts
Positively interacting with customers and providing them an excellent service
Preparing a variety of meals suitable for children and adults
Maintaining excellent standards of food hygiene, safety, and cleanliness
Ensuring special dietary requirements are catered for appropriately

What We’re Looking For

· Experience in a busy kitchen environment, ideally with leadership responsibilities
· A genuine love for cooking and working in a team
· A strong understanding of food hygiene and kitchen safety
· A positive, proactive and customer-focussed attitude
· A Level 2 Food Hygiene Certificate (or willingness to obtain one - paid for by Robinwood)

What We Offer

· A supportive and friendly working environment
· Regular Monday - Friday daytime shifts – no late-night restaurant hours!
· Tax free profit bonus
· 12 weeks set holiday a year including August and Christmas!
· Uniform
· All meals free of charge
· Staff social events
· Pension scheme
· Training and development opportunities
· Beautiful working surroundings in a historic hall and countryside setting
· A role that makes a really positive difference to children

Your Working Week

This is a full-time position with a contract of 30 hours per week. Lead Cooks receive 6 weeks of paid holiday and accrue a further 6 weeks of holiday during their working weeks. This allows for 12 weeks holiday a year, closely following the school holiday dates. These accrued holiday hours means the average working week is around 38 hours per week.

Example working week:

· Monday – Friday, no late nights or weekend work
· Breakfast shifts start no earlier than 6am
· Evening shifts finish no later than 8pm
· Friday finish no later than 5pm, but usually 3pm
· Timetable is on a 4 week pattern, an example of one working week could be:
o Monday – 6am – 3pm
o Tuesday – 6am – 3pm
o Wednesday – 9am – 8pm
o Thursday – 7am – 8pm
o Friday – 7am – 2pm

Your Pay

The starting rate of pay for this role is £24,726 (£15.85 per hour) and is an annualised hours contract of an average of 33 hours per week. Actual annual earnings are spread evenly across the year, providing consistent monthly pay regardless of seasonal fluctuations in working weeks and holiday. The final pay level will be determined based on the experience and skills of the successful candidate.

Who We Are

We are an award-winning school residential provider offering 3-day, 2-night residential courses for 7–11-year-olds. We focus on making a really positive difference developing children through adventurous and themed activities and have been doing so, very successfully, for over 30 years. Always looking to the future and striving to improve in whatever way we can for both our customers and our staff, we are proud to announce that we became an employee-owned company in November 2024, a Living Wage Employer in 2023 and were last awarded Investors in People Gold in 2022.

Closing Date 20th April, Interviews Friday 24th April. Start date as soon after that as possible