Food Service Managers

Low Risk
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Explore safer careers (5)

Lower estimated automation risk

General and Operations Managers
15% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Pays better More jobs
19.7 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Budgets, staffing, daily operations, customer service, policy, and performance metrics are reusable.

First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
20% automation risk | Minimal Risk
More jobs
15.2 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Kitchen supervision, staffing, food safety, service timing, customer issues, and cost control transfer directly.

Training and Development Specialists
19% automation risk | Minimal Risk
Higher growth More jobs
15.7 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Food safety training, onboarding, procedures, coaching, and performance feedback transfer well.

Lodging Managers
23% automation risk | Low Risk
11.7 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Hospitality operations, guest service, staffing, budgets, vendors, and service standards transfer well.

Chefs and Head Cooks
29% automation risk | Low Risk
6.1 pts lower View career
Why it fits

Menu planning, kitchen workflow, ordering, food quality, sanitation, and staff direction overlap strongly.

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Occupation snapshot

What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
6.5/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

Risk & user votes

Calculated automation risk

35% (Low Risk)

Low Risk (21-40%): This occupation has a lower risk of full replacement by AI, software, or robotic systems. Some tasks may be automated or assisted, but the role usually still relies on human judgement, communication, responsibility, physical adaptability, or practical decision-making.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Human strengths important in this job

These are human abilities and work contexts that are important in this occupation. They may help explain why parts of the role are harder to replace end-to-end, but they are not the only inputs into the automation score.

Coaching and developing others

Very important
Why this matters
Helps people learn and improve through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. This relies on trust, motivation, and adapting guidance to each person—work that’s hard to replace end-to-end with automation.
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Assisting and caring for others

Quite important
Why this matters
Provide hands-on help, emotional support, or personal care to people—work that depends on empathy, trust, and responding to individual needs in the moment.
Jobs that also use this strength

Managing and developing people

Quite important
Why this matters
Motivate, coach, and direct others, and make hiring and staffing decisions. These people-focused responsibilities rely on judgment, trust, and interpersonal skill and are harder to replace end-to-end with automation.
Jobs that also use this strength

Social perceptiveness

Quite important
Why this matters
Noticing others’ emotions and reactions in the moment and adjusting what you say or do based on why they’re responding that way.
Jobs that also use this strength

Working directly with the public

Quite important
Why this matters
The job involves face-to-face interaction with customers, clients, or guests—answering questions, handling requests, and managing service situations in real time. Roles with frequent public interaction are harder to replace end-to-end because they rely on trust, communication, and adapting to unpredictable human needs.
Jobs that also use this strength
Show 5 more strengths

Thinking creatively

Quite important
Why this matters
Coming up with original ideas and designs—creating new concepts, products, systems, or artistic work. This kind of open-ended invention and taste-based judgment is harder to automate end-to-end than routine, rule-based tasks.
Jobs that also use this strength

Negotiation

Quite important
Why this matters
Bringing people together to reconcile differences, trade off priorities, and reach agreements—work that depends on trust, persuasion, and reading the situation.
Jobs that also use this strength

Critical thinking

Quite important
Why this matters
Weigh options using logic and evidence, spot weaknesses in arguments, and choose the best approach when there isn’t a single clear answer.
Jobs that also use this strength

Developing objectives and strategies

Quite important
Why this matters
Sets long-term goals and chooses strategies and actions to reach them, weighing tradeoffs and adapting plans as conditions change.
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Active learning

Quite important
Why this matters
Keeps learning from new information and applying it to make better decisions now and in the future, especially when situations change.
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What users think

Based on 68 votes

38% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 35% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Food Service Managers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

Based on user votes over time

View sentiment trend

How opinions have changed over time

Pay & outlook

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2024, the median annual wage for Food Service Managers was $65,310 ($31 per hour).

The median annual wage for Food Service Managers was 31.9% higher than the national median annual wage, which stood at $49,500.

View wage trend

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Growth

Very fast growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Food Service Managers' job openings is expected to rise 6.4% by 2034

View employment trend

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Volume

Greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2024 there were 244,230 people employed as 'Food Service Managers' within the United States.

This represents around 0.16% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 631 people are employed as 'Food Service Managers'.

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What people are saying (4)

Maria (Low)
27 May 2026 10:23
This industry has very high human interaction reliance- something that may be developed and improved over the years but would be very difficult to perfect.
Michelle (No chance)
06 Sep 2024 23:20
Robots don't have human emotion or empathy.
Ashwin.S.Rao (Low)
09 Aug 2023 05:40
Human Touch is a very important criteria in Hospitality Industry, which cannot be replaced with any Robots or any AI!!!
Sarah (No chance)
13 May 2019 21:38
I think that a job like a food service manager would never go away at all. We do need them to keep the food safe.
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Job description

Plan, direct, or coordinate activities of an organization or department that serves food and beverages.

O*NET-SOC code: 11-9051.00