Salaries, roles and trends in Italian HoReCa work
4,919 positions analyzed from April 2024 to March 2026, across all 20 Italian regions. The first observatory report is a two-year historical baseline: the next ones will be quarterly.
- Format
- PDF · 21 pages
- Period
- Apr 2024 – Mar 2026
- Published
- April 2026
PDF · 21 pages · 409 KB
Numbers in summary
Five numbers to read the market
- €1,731Average monthly net equivalent over 12 months
- +3.0%Salary growth Q1 2025 vs Q1 2026 (vs +2.0% CCNL)
- €82North-South gap on full-time, monthly
- 98%Full-time positions above €1,300 net
- 70%Fixed-term with possibility of permanent
The context
An industry that grows and loses workers
The observatory data arrives at a moment of strong contradiction. The FIPE 2026 Report (2025 data) cites €100 billion in away-from-home consumption (+3.7%), but 114,338 employees lost in one year (-10.3%). One in two staff searches (51%) is problematic. The vacancy rate in the sector is 4.8% per ISTAT, almost double the euro area average (2.5%, Eurostat).
Sources cited
- · FIPE-Confcommercio, Restaurant Industry Report 2026 (2025 data)
- · ISTAT, The labour market, Q2 2025
- · Eurostat, Job Vacancy Statistics, Q4 2025
- · Unioncamere – Ministry of Labour, Excelsior Bulletin March 2026
The 4 findings
What emerges from the report
01
Salaries grow, faster than contracts
Between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026 salaries grew by +3.0%, one percentage point above the increases set by the CCNL Tourism contract (+2.0%). Restaurateurs aren't just adjusting to minimums: they're raising offers to compete.
02
The North-South gap is smaller than expected
The difference between full-time salaries in the North (€1,836 net equivalent) and South & Islands (€1,754) is €82 per month, 4.7%. A figure that challenges the common narrative.
03
The real problem isn't pay. It's scarcity
The 'cuoco capo partita' (line cook) is the second most-sought role (14% of positions), but receives less than half the applications a waiter gets. It's the hardest profile to fill, and its salary has remained almost flat: +0.6% in a year.
04
Building a career in hospitality is possible
The top 10% of positions exceed €2,250 net per month. The highest pay in the dataset reaches €63,000-69,000 RAL for kitchen managers in luxury hotels and starred restaurants.
Salaries by professional level
How much you actually earn, by level
The gap between a kitchen manager and a bar counter assistant is over €1,000 per month.
| Professional level | Net equiv./month | Estimated RAL | No. positions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen senior (head chef, exec. chef) | €2,449 | ~€40,900 | 196 |
| Front-of-house senior / manager | €2,145 | ~€32,500 | 172 |
| Skilled kitchen (chef de partie, sous chef, pizzaiolo) | €1,985 | ~€32,800 | 1,101 |
| Skilled FoH (chef de rang, head waiter, bartender) | €1,910 | ~€31,200 | 546 |
| Entry-level FoH (waiter, FoH attendant) | €1,555 | ~€25,100 | 1,149 |
| Entry-level kitchen (kitchen assistant) | €1,525 | ~€24,600 | 861 |
| Bar (counter staff, barista) | €1,432 | ~€22,800 | 497 |
Monthly net equivalent salary over 12 months. Estimated RAL with band coefficients. For full methodology, see the integral PDF.
We analyzed nearly 5,000 positions in Italian hospitality over the last two years. The most important finding isn't how much people earn, but the fact that until today, no one had ever collected these numbers in a precise way.
Methodology
How we read this data
- 01
Analyzed 4,919 positions with declared and validated salary published on Restworld between April 2024 and March 2026, across all 20 regions.
- 02
Positions below legal thresholds, with irregular conditions or signs of undeclared work aren't published on the platform and therefore don't enter the dataset.
- 03
All salaries are converted to monthly net equivalent over 12 months to ensure comparability.
- 04
Geographic comparisons are calculated only on full-time positions (40 hours). Geographic distribution reflects Restworld's commercial coverage (64% North, 24% Centre, 12% South & Islands).
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