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CAREERMASH (EN)FROM CLEANING & FACILITIES →

Dishwasher

A dishwasher, or kitchen porter, keeps a kitchen's plates, pots and utensils clean and the workspace tidy so the chefs can keep cooking. It is busy, physical work that is easy to start and suits people who don't mind hard graft and being part of a fast-moving team.

Dishwasher

4

Cleaning & Facilities

AI IMPACT
AI CAN DO4%moving to49%
THE DOOR, NOWB
THE DOOR, 20 YRSD
STARTING PAYnot published
MOAT NOT YET CLASSIFIEDA real score, but the moat is not yet classified. No claim either way.
AI can do very little of this work today
Hands-on work, caring for people and dealing with the real world are among the hardest things to automate, and this job leans on them. We have not yet formally classified its moat, so we make no claim either way, but the exposure score speaks for itself.

The role

The job is washing dishes by hand and machine, scrubbing pots and pans, clearing and cleaning surfaces, taking out rubbish and helping with basic prep when needed. Speed, stamina and reliability matter, since the whole kitchen depends on clean equipment coming back fast during a busy service.

The work is hot, wet, on your feet and often includes evenings and weekends, with pay usually around the minimum wage. It can be tiring and repetitive, but it is a genuine way into a kitchen and many chefs started exactly here.

No qualifications are needed and you learn on the job in your first shift. Following basic food hygiene rules is part of the role, and showing willing can lead to kitchen assistant and then chef roles over time.

Daily responsibilities

  • Wash dishes, glasses and cutlery
  • Scrub pots, pans and kitchen equipment
  • Load and run the dishwashing machine
  • Clean surfaces, floors and bins
  • Help with basic food prep when asked
  • Put clean items back where they belong
  • Follow food hygiene and safety rules
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AI EXPOSURE = the share of a job's day-to-day tasks AI can already do today, from the same exposure engine used across this site (Anthropic labour market research, 2026, observed real-world AI usage by occupation). Higher means more exposed. It is a measurement of now, not a prediction. THE DOOR = how hard the job is to get into, grade A (easy) to E (extremely hard), from each career's published forecast (OpenAI, "The AI Jobs Transition Framework", Richmond 2026, CC BY 4.0). A card marked MOAT NOT YET CLASSIFIED has a real exposure score but no entry yet in our moat register, so we make no claim about what structurally protects it. Scorecard grades and verdicts are Careermash editorial judgment: we show forecasts as forecasts and own our conclusions. Salary and pathway figures are each career's own published profile. Careermash is a service provided by What School Ltd.

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