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How to become a butcher

Most working butchers learn on the job through an apprenticeship, a few through college, and a growing number through the short courses on this site before they commit. Here is how each route works and what the official standards say.

Butchery is still a trade you learn with your hands, under someone who has done it for years. That is why the apprenticeship, which pays you while you train, remains the main way in. The alternative routes, college courses and private short courses, suit people changing career, running a farm shop, or testing whether they like the work before they leave a job.

The facts below come from the apprenticeship standard, government careers guidance and the awarding bodies, each with its source and the date we checked it.

What the standard and the official guidance say

• The Level 2 Butcher apprenticeship standard has the reference ST0078 and is set at Level 2.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• The standard's typical duration is 18 months excluding the end-point assessment period, and the standard text gives 18 to 24 months.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• The funding band maximum for the Butcher standard (version 1.1) is £9,000.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• The Butcher standard is for butchery work in a butcher's shop, a butchery department or a meat processing plant, with job titles including retail butcher, process butcher and in-store butcher.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• The standard has two options, Process or Retail, and covers core knowledge, skills and behaviours including meat species, cutting and boning, food safety, stock control and customer communication.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• Before the end-point assessment, apprentices must achieve Level 2 Food Safety, Level 2 Health & Safety in the Food Supply Chain and Level 2 Knife Skills awards, and those without Level 1 English and maths must achieve it and take the Level 2 test.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• Version 1.1 of the standard is now retired; the current version is 1.4, for apprenticeships starting between 8 December 2025 and 31 January 2027.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• Graduates of the Butcher standard are recognised by the Institute of Meat and may use the initials M.Inst.M.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• Employers involved in creating the Butcher standard include ABP, Aubrey Allen, Bernard Matthews, Faccenda, Fairfax Meadow, J. W. Mettrick and Sons Ltd, John Taylor and Son Ltd, Morrisons, Tulip and Walter Smith Fine Foods.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• An Advanced Butcher standard also exists: ST0077, Level 3, typical duration 18 months excluding assessment (18 to 24 months in the detail), funding band maximum £12,000 (version 1.1, since replaced by version 1.2).Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• Advanced Butcher apprentices must achieve Level 3 Awards in Food Safety Supervision, HACCP for Food and Health and Safety in the Food Supply Chain Business, with options for retail shop, processing plant or in-store butchery.Source: Skills England (formerly IfATE), checked 19 October 2026.
• The apprentice minimum wage rate is £8.00 an hour from 1 April 2026, applying to apprentices aged under 19, or aged 19 or over in the first year of their apprenticeship.Source: GOV.UK, checked 19 October 2026.
• From 1 April 2026 the National Minimum Wage is £12.71 for ages 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20 and £8.00 for under 18.Source: GOV.UK, checked 19 October 2026.
• The National Careers Service lists butcher pay as £18,000 for a starter to £26,000 when experienced, with typical hours of 43 to 45 a week (no reference year is given).Source: National Careers Service, checked 19 October 2026.
• The National Careers Service lists three entry routes for butchers: a college course, a Level 2 Intermediate apprenticeship followed by Level 3 Advanced, or working towards the role as a trainee in a butcher's shop.Source: National Careers Service, checked 19 October 2026.
• For a butcher Intermediate apprenticeship the National Careers Service says employers want 'some GCSEs, usually including English and maths, or equivalent'; for the Advanced apprenticeship, 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 including English and maths, or equivalent.Source: National Careers Service, checked 19 October 2026.
• The Worshipful Company of Butchers says it worked with the Meat and Livestock Commission to create the Meat Training Council in 1991, later widened into Food and Drink Qualifications and renamed the Food and Drink Training and Education Council (FTC), and that the Institute of Meat was taken over by FTC in 2010.Source: Worshipful Company of Butchers, checked 19 October 2026.
• The Worshipful Company of Butchers says FTC and employers, with the Company's financial support, developed and introduced the Butcher Apprentice Standard in 2016, followed by the Advanced Butcher Standard and an Abattoir Standard.Source: Worshipful Company of Butchers, checked 19 October 2026.

Butcher vacancies on Find an Apprenticeship ↗

Try before you commit

A beginner's evening class or a one-day whole-animal course is the cheapest way to find out whether you enjoy breaking down a carcass for three hours. The providers listed under beginners on this site run them most weeks; a day at a farm or a cookery school tells you more than a job description will.

Finding a vacancy

Apprenticeship vacancies are advertised on the government's Find an Apprenticeship service and by the larger employers directly: supermarket meat counters, regional butchery chains, wholesale and catering butchers, and independent shops that take one apprentice at a time. Walking into a good independent with a CV still works, and several shops on this site say so on their own pages.

Where an official source could not be read on the day we checked, the point is left out rather than guessed; we add it when the source is confirmed.

Sources

1. Skills England (formerly IfATE): https://skillsengland.education.gov.uk/apprenticeship-standards/butcher-v1-1
2. Skills England (formerly IfATE): https://skillsengland.education.gov.uk/apprenticeship-standards/advanced-butcher-v1-1
3. GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
4. National Careers Service: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/butcher
5. Worshipful Company of Butchers: https://www.butchershall.com/education-awards/training

General information, not legal, financial or careers advice. Every fact above links to the page it was taken from, with the date we checked it.