The demand for sucrose esters (SEs) is increasing due to its important role as emulsifiers in the food, medicine and cosmetics industries. However, the conventional method of producing SEs commercially through chemical transesterification has several drawbacks, including a high-energy process, low product quality, waste production and the presence of toxic residues in the final product. To overcome these issues, a lipase-transesterification reaction was developed to produce SEs. This study aimed to optimise the lipase-transesterification reaction, catalysed by Candida antarctica Lipase B (CALB), using palm kernel oil methyl ester (PKOME) and sucrose to achieve the optimal SEs yield. The optimisation process was conducted following central composite design (CCD) and then analysed using response surface methodology (RSM). The independent variables used were sucrose concentration, CALB load and reaction temperature. The optimal SEs yield of 98.29% was obtained at a sucrose concentration of 400 mg mL^-1, a CALB load of 0.4 wt% and a reaction temperature of 40°C. The optimal SE characteristics were: acid value of 2.93 mg KOH g^-1, methanol content of 0.10%, hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) of 16.13 and soluble in oil, ethanol and H₂O. SEs have main functional groups of O–H, C=O, C–O and CH₂ (aliphatic chain).