"Senior Chef"

University of Hull

Background and Context

Commercial Services is responsible for the provision of campus catering services, conference and function facilities. The service provides a varied range of catering facilities for both internal and external customers, ranging from small corporate meetings to large outdoor exhibitions, private dining, banqueting, hospitality and busy retail section with seven current retail outlets on campus alongside street food vehicles and mobile catering units.

Canham Turner house is central to our catering portfolio to facilitate high quality staff and student dining experiences.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities of the post

As Senior Chef your duties will include but are not limited to:

• Assist in the creation and delivery of retail food concepts that meet and exceed standards which contribute to increased sales and profitability of each retail food outlet.
• Research and compare the services and dishes provided by other similar businesses, concepts and establishments within the hospitality sector. Contribute to the input for concept designs and service delivery improvements. Support the Head Chef in creating a food service provision that is both diverse, sector leading and produces value for our customers.
• Support in the development and delivery of a banqueting and hospitality offering that aims to meet and exceed the standards of other institutions. Support the Head Chef in creating and adapting menus for both banqueting and hospitality.
• Continually review services within the Kitchen to identify fresh and creative ways of improving service efficiency and income generation. Monitor KPI’s for the team, seeking feedback while working in partnership with the Marketing team.
• Implement continuous improvement and innovation to achieve improved quality, value for money services and growth in income generation.
• Contribute to the creation of robust business plans to support and deliver the Kitchen’s contribution against agreed objectives in line with the overall strategy of Commercial Services, and the University.
• Embed a culture of ‘Service Excellence’ in all areas of the Kitchen and play a key role in embedding this culture across the Department. Use extensive knowledge of food production to act as a key point of contact for colleagues and any queries they may have, while developing their skills.
• Motivate teams and individuals by providing clear direction on business targets whilst establishing and maintaining positive relationships. Delegate work as needed among the Kitchen Assistants.
• Contribute to the organising and planning of resource to support day to day operations and events, which helps ensure appropriate resource is available to provide required services.
• Provide feedback to your team, document continual development objectives, demonstrate effective communication and make recommendations to the Head Chef about you and your teams development needs.
• Performance and absence manage direct reports as required, providing wellbeing support to individuals where needed, while also limiting potential disruption to operations.
• Contribute and lead when needed on team meetings and lead on individual meetings to maximise the output

Please ensure that you upload a CV and cover letter referring directly to how you meet the criteria given in the job description.

The job description can be found here.

Please note that this vacancy closes at 00:01am on Saturday 11 April 2026. To ensure your application is considered, please ensure that you submit your application in enough time.

If you would like to be part of our future or have any queries, then please get in touch today - Talent@Hull.ac.uk