Chef and cookery courses in Australia: Cert III, costs and where to study

The qualification: Certificate III in Commercial Cookery (SIT30821)

The trade qualification for cooks and chefs is the Certificate III in Commercial Cookery, code SIT30821. As at September 2026 it is the current version on training.gov.au, where it replaced the older SIT30816. If a provider is still advertising SIT30816, ask why.

As an apprenticeship it usually runs 3 years, sometimes up to 4 depending on your state and employer. It is competency-based, so if you can prove the skills early, you can finish early. You work in a real kitchen full time and attend trade school (or do workplace-based training) around one day a week.

There is also a pre-apprenticeship option, the Certificate II in Cookery (SIT20421). It is not compulsory, but it teaches knife skills, kitchen basics and food safety, and it shows an employer you are serious. Plenty of people land their apprenticeship off the back of it, and some states run it fee-free.

What you will actually learn

SIT30821 Certificate III in Commercial Cookery is 25 units of competency: 20 core and 5 electives. Strip away the paperwork and it is a straight line from holding a knife properly to running a section on a busy Saturday night. Here is what you actually do.

• •Get your food safety sorted first: hygienic practices, safe food handling, temperature control and the HACCP style systems every commercial kitchen runs on. You cannot touch the good stuff until this is locked in.
• •Master knife skills and mise en place: dicing, julienne, chiffonade, and setting up your section so service does not bury you.
• •Use the real gear: mixers, slicers, blenders, combi ovens, deep fryers, and how to strip and clean all of it without losing a finger.
• •Cook your way through the classic methods: braising, poaching, grilling, roasting, shallow and deep frying, steaming and sous vide style low temperature work.
• •Build stocks, sauces and soups from scratch (SITHCCC029): brown stock, veloute, hollandaise, consomme. This is the backbone of everything else you plate.
• •Break down and cook proteins: portion poultry, butcher cuts of beef and lamb, fillet fish and handle shellfish, then match each cut to the right cooking method.
• •Handle vegetables, fruit, eggs, rice and pasta dishes, plus full vegetarian and vegan cooking, which is now a core unit, not an afterthought.
• •Make appetisers, salads, cakes, pastries, breads and plated desserts (SITHPAT016): your first crack at patisserie work like creme brulee, tarts and petit fours.
• •Cook for special dietary needs: allergies, intolerances, religious and cultural requirements, and why getting this wrong is a sackable and dangerous mistake.
• •Plan and cost recipes: portion yields, food cost percentages and ordering, the numbers side that separates a cook from a future head chef.
• •Coach other people in job skills, because by the end of your time you will be the one showing the new first year how to hold their knife.
• •Finish with the capstone unit, work effectively as a cook (SITHCCC043), where you prove yourself across a logged run of real service periods on the pass, under real time pressure.

Year by year: how the training usually runs

Chef apprenticeships typically run 3 years, shorter than most construction trades, and completion is competency based, so a keen apprentice in a good kitchen can finish faster. Employers and RTOs split the units differently between states, so treat this as the typical shape, not a promise.

• •First year: at TAFE you cover hygiene and food safety, kitchen equipment, knife skills, basic cookery methods, appetisers and salads, and your first stocks, sauces and soups, usually one day a week on campus. In the kitchen you live on prep and the larder section: peeling, dicing, salads, cold starters and cleaning down. The milestone feel is your first solo prep list, when the sous chef hands you the sheet and walks away.
• •Second year: TAFE moves to the protein units, poultry, meat and seafood butchery and cookery, vegetarian and vegan dishes, and deeper food safety, and your trainer starts signing off units in your training plan from evidence of real service work. On the job you step onto hot sections and learn to run grill or saute during service, calling back dockets and holding your times. By the end of the year you should be trusted to hold a section on a quiet night without someone shadowing you.
• •Third year: TAFE covers desserts, cakes, pastries and breads, special dietary cooking, and recipe planning and costing, then the capstone unit where you log a set number of complete service periods working as a cook. In the kitchen you rotate through pastry and the harder sections, help with menu changes and ordering, and run the pass when the head chef steps off. Finish your units and your logged service periods and you are a qualified chef; plenty then go straight into SIT40521 Certificate IV in Kitchen Management, the sous chef and head chef qualification, which some employers roll into a fourth year.

Two ways in: apprenticeship or full-time study

Cookery is different from most trades. You do not need an apprenticeship to hold the Cert III. TAFEs and private colleges run it as a full-time course, usually 9 months to 18 months, and you can go straight from school into one.

The trade-offs are simple. As an apprentice you earn a wage the whole way through, your training fees are free or heavily subsidised in most states, and you finish with 3 years of real kitchen experience. Full-time study gets you the certificate faster, but you pay full fees (often five figures), you earn nothing while you study unless you work on the side, and you still start at the bottom of a kitchen when you graduate.

For most people who want a career as a chef, the apprenticeship is the smarter money. The full-time route makes sense if you cannot find an apprenticeship yet, you are switching careers later in life and want the ticket fast, or you specifically want a private college program with international placements.

How you actually sign up as an apprentice

You do not enrol like a uni student. First you need a job: a cafe, restaurant, pub, hotel or catering company willing to take you on as an apprentice cook. The employer then contacts an Apprenticeship Connect provider (the free government-funded service, find one at apprenticeships.gov.au) who sets up the training contract and registers it with your state training authority.

You and your employer choose the RTO (the TAFE or training provider) together. Only then does the trade school enrolment happen. If you are still at school, ask about a school-based apprenticeship, where you start the training contract part time while finishing year 11 and 12.

What the apprenticeship costs, state by state

Here is the picture as at September 2026. Funding rules change every budget, so always check the live page for your state before you count on anything.

• •NSW: fee-free. The NSW Government covers the student fee for Smart and Skilled apprenticeship courses at TAFE NSW and approved providers, so cookery apprentices pay no course fee. Check the TAFE NSW fee-free apprenticeships page.
• •VIC: subsidised, and often free. Cookery apprentices train in a government-subsidised place, and Certificate III in Commercial Cookery is on the Free TAFE list at providers like William Angliss, so eligible apprentices pay no tuition. Without Free TAFE, Angliss lists apprentice tuition around $3,213 (concession $643) as at September 2026, plus materials.
• •QLD: free if you start under 25. Commercial cookery is on the Free Apprenticeships for Under 25s list, funded for starts through to 30 June 2027. Otherwise apprentice training is charged at a regulated $1.60 per nominal hour at TAFE Queensland, which works out to a few hundred dollars a year.
• •WA: capped, not free. Cookery sits under Lower Fees, Local Skills, with 2026 annual fees capped at $400 for concession holders and under 25s, and $1,200 for everyone else. Check Jobs and Skills WA.
• •SA: subsidised. Commercial cookery apprenticeships are on the Subsidised Traineeship and Apprenticeship List, so the SA Government pays most of the course cost and providers may charge a gap fee. Check the My Training site (skills.sa.gov.au) for current providers and fees.
• •TAS: subsidised through TasTAFE, which delivers SIT30821 as an apprenticeship. Note that Tasmania's Fee-Free TAFE program excludes people already in an apprenticeship, so check TasTAFE's live course page for the current apprentice fee.
• •ACT: subsidised. The ACT funds apprenticeship training in skills-shortage occupations including cookery, with a minimum student fee (around $350) applying to Australian Apprenticeships training. CIT is the public provider, check its course fees page.
• •NT: fee-free places available. Charles Darwin University runs SIT30821 and lists fee-free places for eligible NT residents under the joint Fee-Free TAFE initiative, with limited spots. Check the CDU course page.

Who actually pays the fees

In the states where fees still exist, do not assume the bill lands on you. Plenty of hospitality employers agree to cover trade school fees as part of taking on an apprentice, so raise it before you sign the training contract.

Some awards go further. Depending on the award that covers your kitchen (commonly the Restaurant Industry Award or the Hospitality Industry (General) Award), there are clauses requiring employers to reimburse an apprentice's training fees and textbook costs unless the employer paid them up front. Check your award at fairwork.gov.au, and for pay rates use the Fair Work pay calculator at calculate.fairwork.gov.au rather than trusting anyone's word.

Where you can study

Every state's public TAFE runs commercial cookery: TAFE NSW, the Victorian TAFEs (including William Angliss, the specialist foods TAFE), TAFE Queensland, South Metropolitan and North Metropolitan TAFE in Perth, TAFE SA, TasTAFE, CIT in Canberra and Charles Darwin University in the NT.

On the private side, the two best-known names are William Angliss Institute (Melbourne and Sydney) and Le Cordon Bleu (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide), and there are plenty of smaller hospitality RTOs in every capital.

To see every provider approved to deliver the qualification, search SIT30821 on training.gov.au and open the list of RTOs with the course on scope. Always confirm the RTO can deliver it in your state and, if you are an apprentice, that it is approved for apprenticeship funding there.

The full-time route: what it costs without an apprenticeship

If you study the Cert III full time instead of as an apprentice, you pay course fees yourself, and outside the subsidised systems they are steep. As at September 2026, TAFE Queensland lists its full-time Certificate III in Commercial Cookery at $17,925 full fee over about a year. Le Cordon Bleu's Sydney Diplome de Cuisine, which packages SIT30821, is listed at $34,280 for domestic students over 15 months including work placement. William Angliss runs its full-time Cert III over a year, and eligible Victorians can do it under Free TAFE, otherwise full fees apply.

One year and a big invoice versus three years on a wage with your fees mostly covered: for most people starting out, the apprenticeship wins. The private college route earns its keep mainly for career changers who can wear the cost, and for people chasing the brand name and networks that come with it. If you do go full time, check whether you qualify for a subsidised or Free TAFE place first.

The next step: Certificate IV in Kitchen Management (SIT40521)

Once you are qualified, the step up is the Certificate IV in Kitchen Management, code SIT40521, current on training.gov.au as at September 2026. It is the chef and sous chef level qualification: supervising a section, ordering, costing menus, rostering and running a kitchen team.

Some apprentices roll straight into it, and some employers set up the Cert IV as a fourth-year or follow-on arrangement. It is also the qualification to aim for if you ever want your own venue. Several states subsidise it, and it appears on Free TAFE style lists in some places, so check your state's funding page before paying full fee.

Costs beyond the course fee

Budget for kit even if your training is fee-free. As a guide, William Angliss lists mandatory materials at $1,850 and uniform and equipment at $852 as at September 2026, and that pattern is similar everywhere: a knife kit, chef whites, non-slip shoes and textbooks are on you unless your employer covers them (and remember the award reimbursement rules above).

• •Knife kit and tools: a starter trade kit commonly runs several hundred dollars. Buy quality once, it lasts your whole career.
• •Uniforms and PPE: chef jackets, aprons, safe footwear. Some schools bundle them into a compulsory kit fee.
• •Food safety extras: your Cert III includes food safety units, but many venues need a nominated Food Safety Supervisor, which can mean a short top-up certificate depending on your state's food authority rules.
• •RSA: if you work anywhere that serves alcohol, most states require a Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate, a short cheap course run under each state's liquor regulator.
• •Travel help: several states pay travel and accommodation subsidies when apprentices must travel long distances to trade school, for example Queensland's subsidy for round trips of 100km or more. Ask your trade school or Apprenticeship Connect provider what you can claim.