The catering, driving, industrial and office recruiter’s September hiring report revealed that hospitality and catering professionals were paid on average 1.3% more than at the same stage last year – while salaries in the three other featured sectors fell for the sixth consecutive month.

Toni Richards, marketing director at Blue Arrow, said: “They say you need to be thick-skinned to work in a professional kitchen and accordingly, the hospitality and catering sector has remained resilient in the face of decreasing salaries elsewhere.

"Although year-on-year salaries have fallen in three out of our four sectors for six months in a row, the drops experienced between September 2015 and September 2016 are notably smaller than those from August 2015 to August 2016, indicating that the market may be flattening as we prepare to enter the festive period.”

Head chefs saw their average earnings rise 6.5% from £30,117 to £31,970 between September 2015 and September 2016. Despite the positive news for the sector as a whole, waiting staff/bartenders and commis chefs still saw their earnings decrease by 3.4% and 0.8% respectively, although the latter drop represented relative stability for commis chefs following the 9.7% year-on-year fall in the August report.