Cake decorators spend their time decorating cakes to standards specified by customers. They are responsible for consulting with customers to discuss desired cake designs and then designing and decorating cakes to customers' specifications. They also often decorate regular bakery items and prepare different kinds of icings, frostings, and cake fillings based on customer specifications.
Cake decorators are also responsible for cleaning and sanitizing all work areas, ovens, and baking and decorating equipment as well as for taking inventory of baking and decorating supplies and ordering new stock as required.
Cake decorators need excellent communication, customer service, organizational, time management, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. They also need to be polite, courteous, and friendly, have a genuine desire to help customers, work well with a team, have manual dexterity, and have the ability to stand for long periods of time.
The most basic requirement for becoming a cake decorator is a high school diploma. However, having a degree in a field related to culinary science is an advantage. Previous experience with cake decorating is valuable, but you will also receive hands-on training while working in a bakery.
Cake Decorator Overview
Cake Decorator Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a cake decorator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.18 an hour? That's $31,567 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 2,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Cake Decorator Do
There are certain skills that many cake decorators have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed artistic ability, color vision and physical strength.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a cake decorator, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.2% of cake decorators included bakery products, while 15.7% of resumes included food safety, and 9.7% of resumes included customer service. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the cake decorator job title. But what industry to start with? Most cake decorators actually find jobs in the retail and hospitality industries.
How To Become a Cake Decorator
If you're interested in becoming a cake decorator, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 20.8% of cake decorators have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.4% of cake decorators have master's degrees. Even though some cake decorators have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a cake decorator. When we researched the most common majors for a cake decorator, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on cake decorator resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a cake decorator. In fact, many cake decorator jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many cake decorators also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or customer service representative.
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Cake Decorator Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a cake decorator can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as pastry chef, progress to a title such as executive chef and then eventually end up with the title general manager.
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Average Salary for a Cake Decorator
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Wal-Mart Cake Decorator Cake Decorator | Wal-Mart Wal-Mart | 01/26/2021 01/26/2021 | $33,39201/26/2021 $33,392 |
Nothing Bundt Cakes Cake Decorator and Froster Cake Decorator and Froster | Nothing Bundt Cakes Nothing Bundt Cakes | 01/26/2021 01/26/2021 | $20,87001/26/2021 $20,870 |
Busch's, Inc. Cake Decorator Cake Decorator | Busch's, Inc. Busch's, Inc. | 01/23/2021 01/23/2021 | $30,26201/23/2021 $30,262 |
Whole Foods Cake Decorator Cake Decorator | Whole Foods Whole Foods | 01/16/2021 01/16/2021 | $32,34901/16/2021 $32,349 |
Buschs Market Cake Decorator Cake Decorator | Buschs Market Buschs Market | 12/30/2020 12/30/2020 | $30,26212/30/2020 $30,262 |
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Cake Decorator Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Cake Decorator. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Cake Decorator Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Cake Decorator resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Skills For a Cake Decorator
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 17.2% of cake decorators listed bakery products on their resume, but soft skills such as artistic ability and color vision are important as well.
- Bakery Products, 17.2%
- Food Safety, 15.7%
- Customer Service, 9.7%
- Safety Standards, 9.1%
- Communication, 7.9%
- Other Skills, 40.4% See All Cake Decorator Skills
Best States For a Cake Decorator
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a cake decorator. The best states for people in this position are Washington, New York, New Jersey, and Alaska. Cake decorators make the most in Washington with an average salary of $36,198. Whereas in New York and New Jersey, they would average $35,817 and $35,442, respectively. While cake decorators would only make an average of $33,712 in Alaska, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Washington
$36,198
Avg. Salary
2. New Jersey
$35,442
Avg. Salary
3. Wisconsin
$31,475
Avg. Salary
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