For most people, a part-time barista job while studying is a means to an end: something to top up their bank account and pad their résumé before landing a “real” job. Sam Henderson thought the same when a friend convinced him to apply for a role at a Starbucks in Leicester, U.K., at 17. He needed pocket money, so he threw on the green apron.
Nearly 20 years later, he’s the man responsible for every drink flavor served across Starbucks stores in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He created the famous Cookies and Cream Frappuccino. He has a house, a passport full of stamps, and a company-paid food science degree-level apprenticeship—all from what started as a Saturday job pouring coffees.
“It’s amazing to think that from a part-time job, I’ve got this life now that I couldn’t have imagined when I was younger,” he tells Fortune.
Henderson’s story is timely. As AI continues to wipe out entry-level office jobs, barista and hospitality roles are quietly becoming one of the more viable places to start a career—better paid, more stable, and with more room to grow than most people assume. Henderson is proof of what’s possible. And he’s got some pointed advice for Gen Z workers who think they’re too good for barista jobs.
“I would never shut down any opportunity,” he says, adding that you never know what path it could lead down. Promotions and big breaks “can come from anywhere.”
“When you look at hospitality, it isn’t just the isn’t just the job that you see in front of you. There’s this whole support network that goes behind it,” he adds. “If you choose to work at a coffeehouse, it’s a great job. If you choose to work for the restaurant, it’s a great job. But if you do want to do something different from that, there are opportunities within that business.”
Case in point: Despite starting out taking orders and serving commuters their caffeine hits, Henderson’s now working in Starbucks’ corporate head office.
Barista jobs are the new ‘grad scheme’—and CEOs say Gen Z should stop snubbing them
The college-to-desk-job pipeline that previous generations took for granted is, by most expert accounts, broken.
Randstad CEO Sander van ‘t Noordende, whose company places around half a million workers in jobs every week, recently warned that young grads may have more luck landing barista, bartending, or trade jobs than the office roles they’d set their hearts on.
Verizon’s chief talent officer, Christina Schelling, put it more bluntly: “There’s a path that you have in your head that you’ve built up for however long, and anything different from that maybe doesn’t feel good enough. But my advice would be to recognize that within yourself, put it aside and just start somewhere.”
Schelling, who has led people teams at Estée Lauder, Prudential, and American Express, is clear that taking a hospitality job doesn’t mean giving up on bigger ambitions—but it’s a start that can open doors. And that’s better than holding out for the dream job and not working at all, like so many Gen Zers are.
“The transferable skills that come from a hospitality job or a retail job—conflict resolution, relationship management, understanding and assessing the customer needs, understanding customer experience, you get management practice—are so transferable,” she told Fortune. “So there’s just so much of that that is important for any job that you are building, even if it doesn’t feel like the path that you thought you would start building on.”
Governments are nudging in the same direction. In the UK, hundreds of millions of pounds are being pumped into hospitality and service roles to tackle youth unemployment and steer young people into jobs.
The money is getting more competitive, too. Starbucks just announced it will offer U.S. baristas up to $1,200 a year in performance bonuses from this July, alongside expanded tipping—changes the company estimates could add 5% to 8% to take-home earnings on top of an average $30 an hour in pay and benefits.
Meanwhile, research has found that frontline workers—from baristas to bar tenders—are increasingly out-earning white-collar entry-level peers as demand for human-facing roles grows while AI automates junior desk-based jobs.
Henderson’s advice for anyone who thinks a barista job is beneath them
Today, through Starbucks’ Beanstock share scheme, Henderson’s funded trips to India, America, and South Korea, put money toward buying and renovating his own home, and is now the person deciding what millions of people will drink next season—all from a job he took for pocket money at 17.
If you do end up working behind a counter, Henderson says, treat it like training, not a dead end.
He kept the part-time job through university, transferring stores as he moved cities because “the great thing about Starbucks is there are lots of Starbucks around the country.” After graduating in 2011, he stepped into a full-time supervisor role while he weighed up his next move, completed a business leadership apprenticeship, and worked his way into store management. By 2013 he was running a weekday store in central London.
Henderson’s big break came in 2015, when he entered the Starbucks U.K. Barista Championship—an annual competition open to anyone on the coffee house floor—and won.
Winning opened a door, but it was now up to him to make something of it. Through the competition, he got his first real contact with the company’s support office, was invited to do ambassador work and coffee tastings at embassies, and eventually caught the attention of a US product developer who watched him experimenting with secret menu drinks. He asked Henderson if he’d ever considered R&D. Henderson’s answer was honest: he had zero training. The developer’s response? That shouldn’t stop him. A year later, a role opened up—Henderson threw his name in, created a new drink for his interview, and got the job.
It’s why he says the key to his climb was keeping his eyes open for opportunities and putting himself forward, rather than waiting to be noticed.
“One of the things for me is being proactive—always being on the front foot, and moving forward, even if you might not have all of the information,” he explains. In fast-paced environments like retail and hospitality, he says that’s especially important. Customer needs shift, new stores open, and new roles emerge.
“You need to make the best move forward you can with the information you have, knowing that tomorrow it might change, and you’ll need to adapt.”
For any Gen Zer currently locked out of the white-collar world—or who wouldn’t have previously considered a role like this—his message is simple: The job title doesn’t matter as much as what you do once you’re in it, he says. Start somewhere, show up fully, and when something bigger comes along, put your name forward.
“Don’t be worried if you don’t have all the skills right now. I didn’t have all the skills I needed to do this job, but I had an interest in it and a passion—and I knew I could go and learn those skills. Don’t stop yourself by thinking you don’t have the skill set to do it, because you can learn it.”
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