Automation Engineer CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a controls and automation engineer with seven years of experience, first in a food and drink plant and now at a control systems integrator. The person and companies are made up. This page covers industrial automation (PLC, HMI, SCADA, DCS, robotics); QA and test automation in software is a different job, covered in the note under the personal statements.

Automation CVs are usually read by an engineering manager or a senior controls engineer, not HR. They are matching you to the platforms in their plant or their current order book, and they decide on four things.

• Platforms, by name and version. "PLC programming" means nothing; "Studio 5000 v33, ControlLogix L8x, FactoryTalk View SE 13" means you can start Monday. The same for Siemens TIA Portal, Ignition, DeltaV, Experion or Beckhoff. List the ones you have really programmed, not the ones you have seen.
• Commissioning. Have you started up a system in a live plant, under a shutdown clock, and made it run? FAT, SAT, I/O checkout, loop tuning and start-up support are the words they look for. Office-only programmers are read differently.
• Project size and industry. I/O counts, number of lines or units, project value, and whether it was food, pharma, water, oil and gas, automotive or discrete manufacturing. Each has its own standards (ISA-88, GAMP 5 and EU GMP Annex 11, IEC 61511, robot safety, hazardous areas) and the manager wants a match.
• Results and safety. Downtime reduced, OEE gained, cycle time cut, projects delivered on schedule, zero incidents on site. Travel availability matters at integrators; say what percentage you can do.

“When a CV says 'experienced with PLCs' and nothing else, it goes to the bottom. When it says ControlLogix, TIA Portal, Ignition, and then tells me how many I/O points they commissioned and on what schedule, that person gets a phone call the same day.”

Write a personal statement once you have commissioned something. Use a career objective as a new graduate or when changing specialism (for example, from maintenance technician to controls engineer). In both, name platforms, an industry and one number.

Most automation CVs list responsibilities ("developed PLC programs and HMI screens") instead of projects. A hiring manager wants project bullets: platform, scope, your role, and the result. Rewrite each duty as a project.

Group the skills so a manager can scan for their platform in two seconds, and list only what you have programmed or configured yourself. Applicant tracking software matches on exact product names, so write them out.

PLC, HMI, SCADA and DCS platforms:

• Rockwell Automation: Studio 5000 / RSLogix 5000, ControlLogix, CompactLogix, GuardLogix, FactoryTalk View SE and ME
• Siemens: TIA Portal, S7-1500 and S7-1200, WinCC, SIMATIC PCS 7
• Other control platforms: Beckhoff TwinCAT, CODESYS, Schneider Modicon M580, Mitsubishi GX Works, Omron Sysmac Studio
• SCADA: Ignition (Inductive Automation), AVEVA System Platform and InTouch, GE iFIX
• DCS: Emerson DeltaV, Honeywell Experion, ABB 800xA

Networks, drives, instrumentation and robots:

• EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, PROFIBUS, Modbus TCP and RTU, OPC UA, MQTT
• VSDs and servos: Allen-Bradley PowerFlex and Kinetix, Siemens SINAMICS, Yaskawa
• Instrumentation: flow, level, pressure and temperature transmitters, HART, loop tuning
• Robots: FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots; vision systems (Cognex, Keyence); PackML packaging control

Standards, design and software skills:

• IEC 61131-3 languages; ISA-88 batch; ISA-95 MES integration; ISA-18.2 and EEMUA 191 alarm management; ISA-101 HMI
• Safety: IEC 61511 (process SIS), BS EN ISO 13849 and IEC 62061 (machine safety), BS EN 60204-1, PUWER; hazardous areas: DSEAR, ATEX/IECEx, CompEx
• Regulated industries: GAMP 5, EU GMP Annex 11 and 21 CFR Part 11 validation; cybersecurity: ISA/IEC 62443
• Drawings and documentation: AutoCAD Electrical or EPLAN, P&IDs, I/O lists, functional specifications, FAT and SAT protocols
• Data: SQL, Python, historians (AVEVA PI, Ignition), Power BI for OEE dashboards

No licence is required to program a PLC in the UK, but a few credentials change how a CV is read. List them with the awarding body and year, and do not list vendor training as a certification unless the vendor calls it one.

• Chartership is not a licence to practise: no UK law requires CEng to program or sign off a control system. It is expected in consulting, water and process design roles and valued at senior level elsewhere. The route runs through a licensed institution such as the IET or InstMC, with an accredited degree or further learning, evidence of competence against UK-SPEC and a professional review interview. If you are on the way, write "working towards CEng" with a target date.
• Education: a BEng or MEng in Electrical, Electronic, Mechanical, Chemical or Control Engineering, with the classification and year. Many strong controls engineers came through an HNC or HND in electrical or instrumentation engineering, or an engineering apprenticeship, plus experience; list it and let the project bullets do the work.
• IOSH Managing Safely, a CSCS card for construction sites, arc flash awareness and the ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Fundamentals Specialist certificate help at integrators and utilities. US readers: the equivalent professional route there is the PE licence and ISA CAP, and the document is a resume.

Integrators and manufacturers hire new controls engineers on evidence that you have touched real hardware and will travel. A final-year project, an industrial placement, a PLC lab and a willingness to commission at 2am matter more than your degree classification.

1. 1Header and career objective: degree, classification and graduation date, any IET or InstMC student or graduate membership, the platforms you have used and your travel availability ("open to 50% travel for commissioning").
2. 2Projects section above experience: final-year project, placement projects and lab work. For each: platform, I/O or scope, what you built, and a measured result.
3. 3Placements, internships and hands-on work with numbers: programs written, I/O points checked out, machines commissioned; maintenance technician, electrician's mate or robotics club work counts, because managers like people who have pulled cable and reset a fault at a machine.
4. 4Skills: exact software (Studio 5000, TIA Portal, TwinCAT, CODESYS, Ignition Maker Edition, MATLAB/Simulink, AutoCAD Electrical) and languages (ladder, structured text, Python, C). One page, no photo, PDF.

• One page up to about 5 years; two pages after that, because project lists are long. A separate one-page project list (platform, industry, scope, your role, year) is common in this field and can be offered.
• Order: header (with CEng, IEng or MIET after your name), personal statement, skills grouped by platform, experience with project bullets, qualifications and training, education. Graduates put projects and education higher.
• Single column, plain fonts, no photo, no skill bars. Engineering managers dislike graphics that claim "90% PLC"; they want product names, versions and scale: I/O count, tags, lines, project value, sites.
• State travel availability and on-call experience plainly; integrators screen on it. PDF unless the application asks for Word.

Words to mirror from adverts when they are true for you: PLC programming, HMI, SCADA, DCS, ControlLogix, Studio 5000, FactoryTalk, TIA Portal, S7-1500, Ignition, DeltaV, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, VSD, servo, robotics, FANUC, commissioning, FAT, SAT, start-up, P&ID, I/O list, functional specification, IEC 61131-3, ISA-88, IEC 61511, ISO 13849, safety PLC, OEE, downtime, alarm management, GAMP 5, BS EN 60204-1, DSEAR, CompEx, historian, OPC UA, MES.