Chef salary in California: $64,500 median.
Pay for chefs across California at every point of the range, against the U.S., the states it borders and the state's metro areas.
Chefs in California earned a median annual wage of $64,500 in May 2025, compared with $62,470 nationally, according to the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey (SOC 35-1011). That is 3% above the U.S. median; the middle half of California workers in this occupation earned between $46,320 and $81,040.
- California median
- $64,500
- $31.01 an hour
- U.S. median
- $62,470
- +3% in California
- Rank, 50 states + DC
- 15 of 51
- by median pay
- Employed in California
- 31,670
- location quotient 1.35
Advice For a pay conversation in California, the state median ($64,500) is the sourced middle of the market; the 25th–75th percentile band ($46,320–$81,040) is where half of the state's workers in this occupation fall. Experience, employer, metro and specialty move individual offers within and beyond that band.
California vs the U.S. at every point of the range
Data Annual wages at five points of the pay distribution, SOC 35-1011, BLS May 2025.
| Point in the pay range | California | United States | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10th percentile | $37,380 | $37,900 | -1% |
| 25th percentile | $46,320 | $48,440 | -4% |
| Median | $64,500 | $62,470 | +3% |
| 75th percentile | $81,040 | $78,750 | +3% |
| 90th percentile | $101,870 | $98,560 | +3% |
Data The local range is shifted unevenly: the bottom and top move in opposite directions from the national range (-1% at the 10th percentile, +3% at the 90th). Locally, the 90th-percentile wage is 2.73 times the 10th-percentile wage, versus 2.60 times nationally, so pay is more spread out than it is nationally.
How common the job is in California
Data BLS location quotient: the occupation's share of state employment divided by its share of U.S. employment.
Data The BLS location quotient for this occupation in California is 1.35, so it is more concentrated than nationally (1.00 = the same share as nationally). That is about 1.7 jobs per 1,000 jobs in the state.
California vs the states it borders
Data Same occupation, same BLS release. A higher median elsewhere is not a job offer; cost of living differs.
| State | Median annual wage | vs California | Employment |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $64,500 | 31,670 | |
| Oregon | $63,600 | -1% | 2,510 |
| Nevada | $62,380 | -3% | 3,940 |
| Arizona | $59,890 | -7% | 4,080 |
Where in California it pays most
Data Metropolitan statistical areas that include part of the state and pass TryHired's reliability rule (500+ jobs, employment PRSE ≤ 20%, mean-wage PRSE ≤ 10%, a published median and a non-degenerate wage distribution). Each is the whole BLS metro area, not a city.
Where chefs earn the highest medians
Data Highest state medians among the 50 states and DC, BLS May 2025. California ranks 15.
See every state on the national Chef salary page.
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How this page is built
BLS OEWS May 2025 state estimates for California and national estimates for SOC 35-1011 (Chefs and Head Cooks). The pay ladder compares the same five published percentiles; the difference column is the local value minus the U.S. value, divided by the U.S. value. Ranks compare published state medians across the 50 states and DC. Employment counts people working in the occupation (excluding the self-employed), not job openings. BLS publishes sampling error for these estimates: the employment estimate has a relative standard error of 11.7%. Lower is more precise; BLS does not publish a standard error for the median itself. Searches this page answers include “how much do chefs make in california”, “chef salary in california” (Ahrefs, U.S.).
- Cost of living: wages are not adjusted for local prices.
- Pay at a specific employer, in one city, or for self-employed workers.
- Local outlook: BLS projections are national.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 state and national estimates (2018 SOC), public domain.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).
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