Baker
What the work is
Prepares and bakes bread loaves, rolls, biscuits and other baked goods.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Weighs and measures ingredients according to recipes
- Mixes ingredients to form dough or batter using electric mixers or by hand
- Operates machines which roll, knead, shape and mould dough, slice bread and cut biscuits
- Coordinates the forming, loading, baking, unloading, depanning and cooling of batches of bread, rolls and other products
- Decorates and garnishes baked goods as required
- Orders and maintains inventory of baking supplies and ingredients
- Maintains the cleanliness of equipment and operation of a bakery before production runs to ensure compliance with work health and safety regulations
- May take orders from customers and handle payments
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a neighbourhood bakery that starts work in the middle of the night, with ovens heating before dawn. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- The first tray of loaves comes out golden at five and the whole shop smells wonderful
- A regular tells you your sourdough is the reason they moved to the suburb
- Hands in the dough at dawn, quiet, while the rest of the city is still asleep
Hard days
- Up at 2am again, and your body clock never quite matches everyone else's
- A batch of dough that did not rise, with the shop opening in an hour
- A hot, floury kitchen in summer with the oven door open and orders still stacking up
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 322131, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.