The Staycation Is Back. Is Your Kitchen Staffed for It?

Something has shifted in how British people are planning their summers. Flights are expensive, international travel feels uncertain, and after a couple of years of squeezed household budgets, the idea of a long weekend in the Cotswolds or a week in a country house hotel in Oxfordshire is looking a lot more appealing than the hassle and cost of going abroad.

For hospitality operators in our region, this is genuinely good news. Occupancy is building. Restaurant covers are filling earlier in the season. Demand for the kind of quality, local, experience-led hospitality that this area does better than almost anywhere in the country is rising.

But good news creates its own pressure. Specifically, the pressure on your kitchen.

More covers means more chefs. More chefs means having a reliable staffing plan in place before the season starts, not after it has caught you out. This article looks at why the staycation trend is real, what it means for staffing demand in the Oxfordshire and Cotswolds region, and what the operators who handle summer well are doing right now.

The Staycation Trend: What the Numbers Say

Q: Is the staycation boom genuinely continuing in 2025?

Yes, and the data backs it up. The shift toward domestic short breaks that accelerated during the pandemic has not reversed. It has settled into a new normal, reinforced by factors that are not going away any time soon.

Flight costs remain significantly higher than pre-2020 levels. Airport disruption and uncertainty around popular European destinations have made planning an overseas holiday feel more stressful and less predictable than it once did. At the same time, domestic hospitality has invested heavily in quality and experience over the past few years, and UK travellers have noticed.

For operators in the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire, and the Thames Valley corridor, this data is directly relevant. This region sits at the heart of the domestic short break market. It is within two hours of London, it has world-class venues, and it offers exactly the kind of countryside experience that city-based households are looking for when they want to get away without getting on a plane.

Q: Which months are likely to see the biggest demand spike?

The traditional summer peak of July and August remains the busiest window, but operators are reporting that bookings are building earlier. May bank holidays and the half-term window at the end of May are now serious booking periods, not just a warm-up for summer.

The pattern looks roughly like this:

• Late April through May: Easter recovery, bank holidays, early staycation bookings building
• June: Pre-summer ramp-up, weddings and corporate events peak
• July and August: Full summer peak — highest occupancy, most covers, greatest staffing pressure
• September: Shoulder season that is growing in popularity as families without school-age children seek quieter breaks
• October half-term: A second meaningful spike, particularly for country house hotels and self-catering adjacent venues

The important point is that staffing pressure does not arrive suddenly in July. It builds from now. Operators who plan early get the best available chefs. Those who leave it to peak season are competing for what is left.

Why Staffing Is the Limiting Factor for Most Kitchens

Q: If demand is growing, why is staffing the problem?

Because the supply of available kitchen staff has not kept pace with the recovery in hospitality demand. The structural chef shortage that existed before the pandemic was made significantly worse by two things: the loss of EU workers following Brexit, and the departure of a large cohort of experienced kitchen staff who left the industry during Covid and did not come back.

The result is a market where operators compete for a smaller pool of available chefs than they had five years ago, at a time when demand from guests is at or above historical highs.

Q: What does this mean practically for a kitchen heading into summer?

It means that the staffing assumptions you made last summer may not hold this year. The casual chef who covered your busy weekends may have moved on. The agency you called last minute in August may have a thinner pool this time around. The person you were going to recruit permanently in May may take longer to find than expected.

The kitchens that have a difficult summer are almost never ones that lack the covers or the bookings. They are the ones that cannot staff up fast enough to deliver on the demand they have worked hard to generate.

Q: What are the specific risks if a kitchen is under-staffed during peak season?

• Service quality drops, leading to negative reviews at the busiest time of year when your reputation matters most
• Existing team burns out covering too many shifts, increasing the risk of further departures mid-season
• Menus get simplified or covers get capped, leaving revenue on the table
• The head chef spends time firefighting rather than leading, which affects both output and team morale
• Recovery from a bad summer review takes months, well beyond the peak trading window

How Smart Operators Are Preparing Their Kitchens Right Now

Q: What are the best-prepared operators doing differently?

The common thread we see among operators who handle peak season well is that they treat staffing as a forward plan, not a reactive problem. They are not waiting until July to think about August. They are having these conversations now, in spring, when there is still time to build the right arrangements.

Specifically, the operators who come into summer in the best shape tend to do four things:

1. They audit their current team honestly. Who is solid? Who is at risk of leaving? Where are the gaps if someone goes sick or hands in notice? This is not pessimism, it is preparation.
2. They establish an agency relationship while things are calm. They brief the agency on their kitchen, their standards, their volume, and their typical busy periods. When the Saturday morning call needs to happen at 7am, the agency already knows what they need.
3. They book known recurring gaps in advance. If you know you need a CDP every Friday and Saturday from June to September, placing that as a standing booking rather than a weekly request gets you a better, more consistent chef.
4. They think about perm and temp as complementary tools. A relief chef who covers consistently through summer often becomes the strongest candidate for a permanent role in autumn. The best agencies make that transition straightforward.

Q: Is it too early to be thinking about summer staffing in April?

No. It is exactly the right time. The pool of quality available relief chefs in this region is finite. Agencies build their books over spring and the chefs who are worth placing get committed to clients early. By June, the availability picture looks very different to what it looks like now.

The Regional Picture: Why Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds Face Specific Pressure

Q: Is the staffing challenge different in this region compared to the rest of the UK?

In some ways, yes. The Oxfordshire and Cotswolds market has a particular dynamic that makes the staffing challenge both more acute and more solvable with the right approach.

On the demand side, this region punches significantly above its weight. It has an unusually high concentration of premium and destination venues — country house hotels, Michelin-recognised restaurants, landmark event venues, and high-quality gastro pubs — relative to its population. When domestic tourism booms, this region feels it disproportionately.

On the supply side, the available pool of chefs is drawn from a relatively contained geography. Oxford, Witney, Bicester, Banbury, Chipping Norton, Cirencester, Cheltenham — these are the towns where most of the available kitchen talent lives. An agency that genuinely knows this geography, and has relationships with chefs across it, can deliver in a way that a national agency operating from a call centre cannot.

Q: What types of venues in this region are most affected by the summer staffing crunch?

• Country house hotels — often running at very high occupancy across peak weekends with no margin for kitchen gaps
• Gastro pubs with outdoor space — covers increase significantly in good weather and the jump can be hard to staff for
• Wedding and event venues — a single large event can require significant additional kitchen resource on a specific date
• University and institutional catering — Oxford in particular has significant summer conference and visitor catering demand
• Holiday parks and leisure venues — seasonal demand spikes sharply and requires reliable short-notice cover

What Goldstar Recruitment Offers Ahead of Summer

Q: How can Goldstar help operators prepare for the summer peak?

Goldstar Recruitment has been placing chefs and hospitality staff across Oxfordshire, the Cotswolds, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, and surrounding counties since 2009. We are a specialist agency — hospitality and catering is all we do — which means our team understands the regional market from the inside.

For operators thinking ahead to summer, we can help with:

• Temporary and relief chef cover at all levels, from Kitchen Porter through to Head Chef and Executive Chef
• Standing bookings for recurring cover requirements, so you have the same reliable face each week rather than a different agency chef every time
• Same-day emergency cover for the gaps you cannot plan for — the sick call, the no-show, the resignation that arrives at the worst possible moment
• Permanent chef recruitment on a no placement, no fee basis, for operators who want to use the summer to build their team for the longer term
• DBS-checked catering staff for schools, care homes, and public sector venues running summer programmes

Q: How quickly can Goldstar respond to an urgent request?

We handle same-day requests as a matter of course. When a chef calls in at 7am on a Saturday morning and service starts at noon, you need a response, not a voicemail. Our team is reachable when it matters and our regional pool means we are not trying to source someone from three counties away.

The clients who get the best service from us are the ones who have taken time to brief us on their kitchen before the pressure arrives. A ten-minute conversation about your operation in April means we can move a lot faster when you call in August.

Five Things to Do Right Now to Prepare Your Kitchen for Summer

If this article has prompted you to think about your staffing position, here is a practical starting point:

1. Map your team honestly against your expected covers. Where are the gaps? Who is a flight risk? What does your rota look like if one person goes sick on a busy weekend?
2. Think about your standing requirements. Do you need consistent cover on specific days? A standing agency booking placed now is more reliable and often better value than a series of one-off requests.
3. Establish your agency relationship before you need it urgently. Call us, brief us on your kitchen, your standards, and your typical volume. It takes twenty minutes and it changes what we can do for you when the pressure is on.
4. Plan your permanent hiring for now, not August. If you know you need an extra CDP or Sous Chef for the season, starting that search in April gives you time to find the right person, not just the first available one.
5. Think about temp-to-perm. A relief chef who performs well through the summer is often the strongest candidate for a permanent role in autumn. The best agency relationships make that transition seamless and cost-effective.