Career Paths · 5 min read · Oct 2026
Salary by Country
Cooks Salary by Country
The US median for cooks is $37,390. Below, the PPP-adjusted equivalent across 13 markets, modelled from US BLS data with OECD wage ratios and live exchange rates.
Pay and AI exposure
What the cooks salary does not tell you
Salary measures what the market pays cooks today. It says nothing about how durable that pay is as AI reshapes the work. Cooks currently sit at 17/100 on the AI exposure scale, in the low exposure band. A well-paid role can still be highly exposed: the question is which layer of the work you occupy.
The country differences below are wage-level effects, not exposure differences. AI compresses the same routine layer of cooks work in every market. To see where your own position sits and what shifts it, run the free structural reading or model the dimensions in the simulator.
13 markets
Cooks salary across countries
Median annual pay and the typical 10th-to-90th-percentile range, shown in each market's local currency.
| Country | Median | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| United States (source) | $37,390 | $28,700 to $47,900 |
| United Kingdom | £19,400 | £14,900 to £24,800 |
| Canada | $38,900 | $29,900 to $49,900 |
| Australia | $39,900 | $30,600 to $51,100 |
| Ireland | €25,500 | €19,600 to €32,600 |
| New Zealand | $37,700 | $29,000 to $48,300 |
| Germany | 24.200 € | 18.600 € to 31.000 € |
| France | 21 700 € | 16 600 € to 27 700 € |
| Netherlands | € 28.700 | € 22.000 to € 36.700 |
| Singapore | $39,000 | $29,900 to $50,000 |
| Japan | ￥3,535,400 | ￥2,713,700 to ￥4,529,100 |
| South Africa | R 210,100 | R 161,300 to R 269,200 |
| India | ₹6,43,700 | ₹4,94,100 to ₹8,24,600 |
US figures are BLS OEWS survey data. All other countries are PPP-adjusted estimates, derived from the US median via OECD average-wage ratios and live exchange rates. They indicate purchasing-power-style equivalents, not surveyed local salaries.
More salaries
Salary by country for other roles
FAQ
Cooks salary questions
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