Hiring a Sushi Chef in London: Pay Benchmarks and Who You Can Hire

London pays chefs more than any other region shown in the ONS earnings survey. It also has the same immigration rules as the rest of the country, which since July 2025 means you cannot sponsor a new chef from Japan. Hiring a sushi chef in London is therefore a pay and positioning problem, not a visa problem. This guide gives you the numbers to price the role.

1. The legal floor and the London benchmark

Two rates matter, and only one is compulsory.

The London Living Wage is calculated by the Resolution Foundation for the Living Wage Foundation and is a voluntary accreditation standard. You are not required to pay it, but many London employers do, and candidates compare offers against it. The next rates are normally announced in the autumn, so check before finalising any offer made late in the year.

For a full-time role at 45 hours a week, the difference between £12.71 and £14.80 is about £94 a week, or close to £4,900 a year. That is the space most London kitchen offers sit in, and for a skilled sushi chef, it is not enough.

2. What London chefs are actually paid

The ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings breaks pay down by region and four-digit occupation. For 2025 (provisional), full-time employees:

Two points stand out. The median London chef earns about £4,000 a year more than the UK median chef. And the median hourly rate for a London chef, £15.17, is only 37p above the London Living Wage. A large share of London kitchen pay is clustered close to that voluntary benchmark.

ASHE covers all chefs in all kinds of kitchens, from contract catering to fine dining. It does not separate Japanese or sushi chefs, and ONS does not publish the percentile breakdown for London chefs in this table (the cells are suppressed as unreliable). No official source publishes a London sushi chef salary. Anyone quoting a precise figure is using job ads or surveys, not official data.

3. The gap that matters for a sushi counter

A chef who can break down whole fish, season rice to your standard and serve at the counter in front of guests is several steps above the median chef in ASHE. In a city where the median is already close to the voluntary living wage, paying the median is the same as paying the market floor.

For reference, when chefs could still be sponsored, the Home Office going rate for SOC 5434 was £33,400 (£17.13 an hour) and the general Skilled Worker threshold was £41,700. Those figures no longer apply to new overseas hires, but they are a useful sign of what the government considered the market price of a chef. A London sushi lead is priced above both of them in most serious restaurants.

4. Who can legally work for you in London

Since 22 July 2025, chefs are a medium skilled occupation that is not on either shortage list, so new Skilled Worker sponsorship from abroad is closed. The people you can hire are those who already have the right to work:

• Youth Mobility Scheme holders. Japan has 6,000 places a year with no ballot. Up to 24 months, any job. See our YMS guide for restaurants.
• Partners of Skilled Workers in graduate-level jobs, who can work in any role except sport.
• Graduate visa holders, for 2 years (18 months for applications from 1 January 2027).
• Chefs on transitional Skilled Worker permission, first sponsored before 22 July 2025, who can move to a new sponsor if they keep continuous permission.
• Settled residents and people with long-term status.

The full picture, including what happens when a sponsored chef's visa comes up for renewal, is in our guide to hiring a Japanese chef in the UK after 2025.

5. Where London's candidates are

Japan's foreign ministry counted 62,270 Japanese nationals in the UK as of 1 October 2025. The published city tables we could access did not give an official figure for London alone, so we do not quote one here. The national figure tells you the pool is real: the UK has the sixth largest Japanese community abroad.

Practical implications for a London recruiter:

• Many of the best candidates are already employed. A sushi chef on transitional Skilled Worker permission or with settled status is almost certainly working. You are asking them to move, which means you need a reason beyond pay: better hours, a counter they can run, more fish work, or a clear path to head chef.
• YMS candidates often plan from Japan. Advertising in Japanese, and being clear that you hire YMS holders, reaches people before they land. See where Japanese chefs look for jobs abroad.
• London competes with other countries, not just other restaurants. A young Japanese cook choosing between London and Sydney or Toronto is comparing pay after rent. Our salary comparison by country shows how London looks from their side.

6. Building an offer that works in London

Pay first. Then the things London candidates weigh most:

1. Hours and days off, in writing. A 45-hour week with two consecutive days off is a different offer from a 55-hour week with split shifts, even at the same hourly rate.
2. Commute. Late finishes and night buses matter. Some restaurants pay a travel allowance or a taxi home after late service.
3. Accommodation help for arrivals. A YMS cook landing at Heathrow needs somewhere to live for the first month. A short-term room or deposit loan removes a major barrier.
4. Tips and service charge. Since the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 came into force on 1 October 2024, employers must pass on all tips to workers and distribute them fairly, following a statutory code of practice. Explain your policy clearly in the offer.
5. A real role on the counter. For sushi chefs, the chance to serve guests directly is often worth more than a small pay rise.

7. Checklist

• Set the hourly rate with the London Living Wage (£14.80) as your minimum reference, and ASHE's London chef median (£15.17) as the point you need to beat for skilled roles.
• Confirm the candidate's right to work and record the check before the first shift.
• For YMS hires, plan the handover at month 20, not month 24.
• Write the job ad in both English and Japanese. See our sushi chef job description template.
• If you have a chef on transitional Skilled Worker permission, protect their continuous permission above all else.

General information gathered from official sources in September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. Wage rates and immigration rules change; check the linked pages before making an offer.