Kitchen porter agency vs in-house — when each makes sense
The headline gap between agency and in-house kitchen porter hourly rates looks bigger than the real all-in difference. Here is the full picture.
The headline numbers
Direct in-house: National Living Wage from April 2026 is £12.71/hour. Add NI, pension, holiday pay → roughly £14.80/hour fully loaded.
Agency: standard London rates from £18.50/hour daytime, £20–£22 evening.
Headline gap: £4–£7/hour.
The hidden in-house costs
What direct hire actually costs once you include the items most operators forget to count:
- Recruitment: advertising, screening, interviews, references. £200–£600 per hire.
- Onboarding: Level 2 Food Safety, RTW check, first-shift handholding. £100–£400 per hire.
- No-shows: KP no-show rate in direct hire averages 6–8% per shift. Each one costs the kitchen ~£200 in scramble and lost productivity.
- Turnover: industry-average KP tenure is 4 months. Recruitment cycle runs 3 times a year per role.
- Management overhead: rota, holiday cover, sick cover, payroll handling, statutory record-keeping.
Add all of that up and the fully-loaded direct-hire cost for a part-time KP averages £17–£20/hour, narrowing the gap to agency by about half.
When agency wins
- Variable shift demand (weekend peaks, events, seasonal).
- Cover for the unfilled-shift gaps that direct hire cannot patch.
- Sub-30-hour-per-week roles where the recruitment cost amortises poorly.
- Operations spread across multiple sites where central agency coordination beats site-specific recruitment.
When direct hire wins
- Stable, predictable shifts — same 4+ shifts per week, year round.
- Roles where progression matters (KP-to-prep, KP-to-CDP pipeline).
- Operations where the management team has bandwidth for rota and HR overhead.
The hybrid model
Most well-run kitchens we see run a hybrid: a small in-house team for stable core shifts, agency overlay for peak periods, emergencies and unfilled rota gaps. The agency is not a substitute for the team; it is the safety net.
See our kitchen porter agency service.
