Catering Assistant

Role: General Assistant (Catering)

Contract Type: Full time – permanent,

Hours: 35 hours per week, (including occasional weekends) – weekly rosters subject to change.

Salary: Grade 2 (£12.60 per hour)

Other Benefits: 28 days annual leave, plus 9 buildings closed days (and Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday), Onsite car parking.

Physical Demands: Bending, standing, walking, lifting, carrying pushing, pulling, cleaning & moving equipment.

Detailed Description

We are hiring a Catering Assistant to join our team and help deliver a professional, welcoming, and flexible catering service to students, colleagues, and visitors across the University. The role involves preparing outlets and events for service, assisting with food preparation, producing hot and cold items, and ensuring high standards of customer service. Duties include operating tills and handling payments, maintaining vending machines, receiving and storing deliveries, monitoring stock, and safely operating catering equipment. You will also support front-of-house activities such as table service, bar work (with training), and buffet service, while maintaining excellent standards of cleanliness, food safety, and hygiene in line with health and safety regulations. This is a varied role in a busy environment, requiring flexibility, teamwork, and a commitment to delivering a high-quality catering experience.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide and assist with the provision of professional, welcoming, high quality, flexible catering service to students, colleagues and visitors to the University across all areas.
• Preparation and pre-service activities prior to the opening of an outlet or the start of an event.
• Operate the outlet tills – including include taking payments whether cash, credit, contactless or cashless.
• Fill clean and service vending machines as trained and per procedures.
• Assist with receiving and putting away food deliveries and stock counting.
• Assist as directed with basic food preparation readying outlets for service, producing prepare to order items – both hot and cold, creation and production of salads, sandwiches, coffees and other items as instructed.
• Preparation, safe operation and cleaning of small items of equipment – to include soup kettles, coffee machines, ice machines, blenders, dishwashers, countertop ovens, toasters etc used daily within the outlets.
• Function Waiting/ service to table, Bar Service, (with relevant training), and assistance with buffet service when required.
• Follow all laid down processes and procedures relating to food preparation, health, hygiene and welfare, temperature checking and waste management. To work within and to be aware of EH, COSHH and Health and Safety Guidelines.
• Maintain a high standard of personal hygiene, and work in a clean and tidy manner.
• Front and back of house cleaning activities as necessary.
• Any other relevant duties which may be required from time to time or as the service develops and adapts which may be reasonably expected of the post holder.

Essential Criteria

• Demonstrable ability to speak and understand English to follow verbal and written instructions and deal with customer/student queries
• Well-developed interpersonal skills
• Delivers excellent customer service, with a professional and courteous approach
• Ability to work quickly, flexibly and accurately
• Good attention to detail
• Effective physical ability to carry out the post activities

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of working within a similar environment
• Experience of operating relevant catering and or cleaning equipment

Where the post holder is in possession of a valid UK Driving License, they will be required to register it with the University Insurance services and drive University Vehicles when required to facilitate the provision of services.

How to Apply

Please submit via the Heriot-Watt on-line recruitment system (1) Cover letter describing their interest and suitability for the post; (2) Full CV

Applications can be submitted until midnight on Thursday, 23rd October 2025

At Heriot Watt we are passionate about our values and look to them to connect our people globally and to help us collaborate and celebrate our success through working together. Our research programmes can deliver real world impact which is achieved through the diversity of our international community and the recognition of creative talent that connects our global team.

Our flourishing community will give you the freedom to challenge and to bring your enterprising mind and to help our partners with solutions that can be applied now and in the future. Join us and Heriot Watt will provide you with a platform to thrive and work in a way that also helps you live your life in balance with well-being and inclusiveness at the heart of our global community.

Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.

Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our University community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups. For more information, please see our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/services/equality-diversity.htm and also our award-winning work in Disability Inclusive Science Careers https://disc.hw.ac.uk/ .

We welcome and will consider flexible working patterns e.g. part-time working and job share options.

Use our total rewards calculator: https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/work/total-rewards-calculator.htm to see the value of benefits provided by Heriot-Watt University.

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