Baker

A baker prepares and bakes a variety of bread, pastries, cakes, and other baked goods in a commercial or retail bakery setting. They follow recipes and production schedules, manage fermentation and proving times, operate commercial ovens and mixing equipment, and ensure baked products meet quality and food safety standards. Bakers work in bakeries, supermarkets, cafes, restaurants, and food manufacturing facilities across Australia.

Measure and weigh dry ingredients including flour, sugar, salt, and yeast according to recipe specifications and batch sizes. Operate commercial mixers and dough-making equipment to combine ingredients and develop gluten structure. Monitor dough fermentation and bulk proving times, adjusting temperature and humidity in proof boxes as required. Shape dough by hand or using dividing and moulding equipment into loaves, rolls, pastries, and other forms. Score bread loaves with lames or blades to control expansion during baking. Load items into commercial deck ovens, rack ovens, or tunnel ovens and set baking temperatures and times. Monitor baking progress through oven windows and use visual cues and colour to determine bake completion. Apply glazes, egg wash, seeds, or toppings to items before or after baking.

The standard entry pathway requires a Certificate IV or Certificate III with at least two years of on-the-job training (ABS skill level 3). Specific qualification requirements vary by employer and state. Some employers may accept equivalent experience. Check yourcareer.gov.au for available courses and dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe for subsidised training options.

You'll start before dawn most days, often 3 to 4am, and the hours don't change much. The work is physically demanding on your back, hands, and feet. Pay tops out fairly low compared to other trades, and moving into management is the only real way to earn more. Automation may reduce some baking roles in large factories over time.

Most jobs are in major cities where there are supermarkets, cafes, and dedicated bakeries. Regional areas have fewer positions. Work is concentrated around food retail and hospitality hubs rather than spread across rural Australia. Remote work doesn't exist in this role.

Published for ANZSCO unit group 3511, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.

This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.

Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.

• Adaptability and Flexibilitycore
• Administer ingredients in food productioncore
• Attention to Detailcore
• Basic Arithmetic and Numerical Accuracycore
• Inventory Trackingcore
• Multitaskingcore
• Policy and Procedure Adherencecore
• Problem Solvingcore
• Quality Assurance and Checkingcore
• Regulatory and Legislative Awarenesscore
• Team Collaborationcore
• Time Management and Prioritisationcore
• Workload Self-Managementcore
• Act reliably
• Care for food aesthetic
• Continuous Learning and Upskilling
• Customer Needs Assessment
• Incident Reporting
• Process Improvement Identification
• Risk Identification
• Stock Counting and Stocktake
• Supplier Communication
• Verbal Communication

• ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
• ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
• ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.

Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.

Where our numbers come from.

What Baker workers move into, from ten years of tax records.

Last updated: 30 October 2026