Baker CV Examples & Writing Guide

A one-page CV for a lead bread baker with nine years in bakeries, seven of them baking. The name and businesses are made up. Each job gives the daily volume, the products and methods, a waste or quality number and the food hygiene record, which is what a head baker asks about before the trial bake.

Baker CVs are read by the head baker, the bakery owner or a supermarket bakery manager, not by HR, except at large supermarket chains and plant bakeries. They usually decide from the CV whether to invite you for a paid trial shift or a practical bake. Four things decide that.

• Volume and product. How many loaves, croissants, cakes or units a shift, and which products. A baker who has produced 900 loaves a night on deck ovens is a different hire from one who baked off frozen dough, and both are useful to the right bakery. Say which you are.
• Methods and equipment. Scaling by baker's percentage, sourdough management, lamination, shaping, scoring, deck versus rack ovens, sheeters, retarders. Name what you have actually run.
• Food safety and consistency. A Level 2 or Level 3 food hygiene certificate, the hygiene rating of the bakeries you worked in, allergen control and PPDS labelling, waste numbers. Owners lose money on waste and lose customers over a poor hygiene rating.
• Reliability at odd hours. Years at one bakery, shifts worked, attendance. Baking starts when everyone else is asleep; a stated record of turning up for 3 a.m. shifts is worth a lot.

“Tell me how many loaves a night and on what oven, and whether you have laminated by hand or on a sheeter. Then tell me you have worked nights for three years without missing shifts. That CV gets a trial bake the same week.”

A good baker bullet gives the product, the quantity per shift, the method or equipment, and a result: waste down, inspections passed, orders delivered complete, defects reduced. Here are eight common job-description lines rewritten as bullets a head baker would believe.

List 10 to 14 skills a head baker could test in a trial shift. Sort them to match the bakery: bread and lamination for a craft bakery, cakes, decorating and waste control for a supermarket bakery, recipes and line equipment for a wholesale or plant bakery.

• Bread: scaling in baker's percentages, mixing and dough development, preferments and sourdough starter maintenance, bulk fermentation, dividing and shaping, scoring, steam baking, retarding.
• Pastry and viennoiserie: lamination (croissant, Danish, puff), enriched doughs (brioche, challah), muffins, scones, cookies, pies, cake baking and basic decorating (buttercream, piping, inscriptions).
• Equipment: deck, rack and convection ovens, spiral and planetary mixers (state the size), dividers and moulders, sheeters, provers and retarders, depositors and slicers.
• Production: par sheets, batch scheduling, wholesale order fulfilment, working from frozen dough or mixes where the job calls for it, opening and closing procedures.
• Food safety and quality: Level 2 or 3 food hygiene certificate, HACCP, temperature and cleaning records, allergen control and labelling (including PPDS under Natasha's Law), stock rotation, waste tracking.
• Working habits bakeries screen for: reliability on night and early shifts, working at pace in heat, lifting 16 kg sacks, keeping a clean station, clear handovers to the day shift and counter staff.
• Leave off "passion for baking" and "creative". Show it with a seasonal recipe you developed or a product line you launched.

You do not need a licence to work as a baker in the UK, but food businesses must make sure staff who handle food are supervised and trained in food hygiene to suit their work, and the bakery itself must be registered with the local council. In practice most employers ask for a Level 2 food hygiene certificate, often within your first few weeks. These are the credentials that appear on baker CVs and are worth listing.

• Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety certificate (catering, retail or manufacturing version). Cheap, often online and done in an afternoon; list it with the year. Many employers ask for a refresher every three years.
• Level 3 Food Safety and Hygiene (supervisor level). Expected for lead bakers, shift supervisors and bakery managers; larger bakeries may ask for Level 3 or 4 HACCP as well.
• Allergen awareness training, such as the Food Standards Agency's free online course or an accredited allergen award. Increasingly requested, and essential if you make or label food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS), which since October 2021 needs a full ingredients label with allergens emphasised.
• Bakery qualifications: a Level 2 or Level 3 Diploma in Professional Bakery, or a bakery apprenticeship at Level 2 or 3. Recognised by craft, supermarket and plant bakeries alike.
• Formal training: a full-time or part-time bakery course at a further education college, or a professional cookery course with a bakery element. Helpful, not required; many head bakers learned on the job. List the level or hours.
• Do not write "food safety certified" without naming the level and the course. Managers know the difference between a Level 2 and a Level 3 certificate.

Three lines: years and type of bakery, your nightly or daily volume and products, one waste or quality number, your food hygiene level. Use a career objective only if you have never worked in a bakery.

Bakeries hire assistants, trainee bakers and apprentices with no professional experience all the time, because the hours are hard and staff turnover is real. The owner is hiring for reliability at 3 a.m., physical stamina, cleanliness and real interest in baking. Your CV has to prove those four things with what you have.

1. 1Header: name, contact, town, and the shifts you can work (nights, 3 a.m. starts, weekends). Add your Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate if you have one; getting one before applying takes an afternoon online.
2. 2Career objective, two lines: your current job with an early-hours or volume number, your home or course baking, the role you want.
3. 3Experience: any job with early starts, heat, standing and pace counts. Commis chef, kitchen porter, barista, supermarket night replenishment, farm work, warehouse. Give hours, volumes and attendance.
4. 4Baking evidence: a college course with hours, a farmers' market stall, a church or school baking role, or home baking described specifically (weekly sourdough, laminated croissants, cakes for events). Be concrete about what you can make.
5. 5Skills: weighing on a digital scale, reading recipes, knife skills, cleaning and sanitising, lifting 16 kg sacks, Level 2 Food Hygiene. One page, no photo.

• Bakery assistant or bakery operative: prep, weighing, bake-off, cleaning, packing. Lead with volumes, early-shift reliability and your food hygiene certificate; show any mixing or shaping you have been trusted with.
• Bakery sales assistant (shop or supermarket counter): customer service, cake orders, slicing, labelling, display and waste. Lead with customers served, cake orders taken, labelling accuracy and sales numbers.
• Pastry chef: menu development, plated desserts, costing and a kitchen team. Lead with dishes developed, food cost percentage, team size and the restaurant or hotel type; culinary training matters more here.
• Bakery manager or head baker: production planning, ordering, staff rotas, food cost, inspections, hiring. Lead with weekly sales, food and labour cost percentages, team size, waste reduction and hygiene rating.

• One page. Head bakers and owners read it on a phone between mixes. Two pages only for head bakers or managers with several bakeries to describe.
• Order: header with shift availability, personal statement, work history, skills, certificates, education. Small bakeries read the work history first; supermarkets and plant bakeries filter on the food hygiene certificate, so keep it visible.
• Plain single-column layout, standard font, no photo, no date of birth. Supermarket chains and large bakeries use applicant tracking systems (Workday or their own careers site); small shops read a PDF or a printed copy you drop off. Both prefer plain.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert: "production baker", "scaling", "mixing", "shaping", "lamination", "deck oven", "rack oven", "sheeter", "food hygiene", "Level 2", "allergen", "PPDS", "par", "waste", "wholesale", "nights", "early starts".
• Expect a trial shift or practical bake. Bring the CV, your food hygiene certificate and your own scraper and scale if you have them; many bakeries decide on the trial shift, not the paper.
• In Scotland, food hygiene courses are often REHIS-accredited and inspections give a Pass or Improvement Required result instead of a 0 to 5 rating. The volumes-and-methods approach is the same.

Run the finished page through the cvplex ATS checker with the advert pasted in. It flags a missing food hygiene line, bullets without a quantity, and formatting that a supermarket's tracking system may misread.