Blacksmith CV Examples & Writing Guide

This is a blacksmith with twelve years in the trade, working between a bespoke architectural forge and a production forge. The name and the workshops are invented. Read what sits highest: the type of work, the equipment, the welding tickets, and a link to photographs.

Blacksmith hiring is small-workshop hiring. The person reading is usually the owner, they are behind on a job, and they want to know whether you can be useful in week one.

• What kind of smithing. Architectural balustrades, gates and ironmongery; knifemaking and bladesmithing; farriery; heritage restoration; industrial drop forging; artist blacksmithing and sculpture. These are separate trades that share a hammer. Say which one is yours.
• Equipment you can run alone. Power hammer size, press tonnage, forge type, ironworker, plasma table, welding sets. A forge with a 2 cwt hammer wants to know you have run one.
• Welding certification. Most architectural and structural work needs welding that will pass inspection. A coded welder certificate to BS EN ISO 9606-1, with the process and position named, is worth more on paper than any amount of forge talent.
• Photographs. This is a visual trade. A link to a gallery, an Instagram account or a PDF portfolio does more than three extra bullets. Put the link in your contact line, not at the bottom.

• Forging: drawing down, upsetting, punching and drifting, bending and scrolling, twisting, splitting, fire welding, texturing
• Joinery: rivets, collars, mortise and tenon, wedges, banding, and knowing when a job actually calls for an arc weld instead
• Heat treatment: hardening, tempering, normalising, annealing, case hardening, quench media selection, reading colour and using a magnet or pyrometer
• Materials: mild steel, wrought iron, high carbon and tool steels, stainless, bronze and copper, and how each behaves at forging heat
• Equipment: coal, coke and gas forges, power hammer, hydraulic and fly presses, treadle hammer, ironworker, bandsaw, plasma table, pillar drill, belt grinder
• Welding and cutting: MMA, MIG/MAG, TIG, oxy-fuel, plasma, and any coded welder certificate you hold with the standard and process named
• Setting out and drawing: shop drawings, full-size chalk setting out, reading drawings, working from an architect's detail, basic CAD if you have it
• Finishing and install: wire wheel, wax and oil finishes, paint systems, powder coat preparation, galvanising, fixing into masonry, scaffolding and powered access work
• Business side if you are self-employed: quoting, material take-offs, client meetings, invoicing, public liability insurance and workshop risk assessments

There is no licence to call yourself a blacksmith in the UK. Skill is proved by work, not paper. That said, several things do carry weight and cost little.

• Welding certification. A coded welder certificate to BS EN ISO 9606-1 is the single most useful piece of paper a smith can hold, because structural work such as staircases and balustrades has to pass inspection. Name the standard, the process and the position, and the date of your last revalidation.
• Safety cards. CSCS card for site work, forklift, overhead crane and slinging, IPAF for powered access. Anything that lets you work on a site without a chaperone is worth a line.
• Trade training. A City & Guilds or NVQ welding or fabrication qualification from a further education college is common and useful. Full-time blacksmithing and artist blacksmithing courses run at a small number of colleges and craft schools, and they are worth listing with the provider and the course length.
• Apprenticeship. Most smiths learn under someone. Say who, where, how long and what you were doing by the end. An informal two-year apprenticeship described in detail reads better than a weekend course with a famous name.
• Associations and events. The British Artist Blacksmiths Association (BABA) and regional blacksmithing groups run forge-ins and conferences, and many agricultural shows hold forging competitions. Membership, placings and any demonstration or teaching you have done belong on the page.
• Bladesmithing. If you make knives, the American Bladesmith Society runs tested Journeyman Smith and Master Smith ratings. It is a US credential, but it is examined and it means something to buyers and makers here too.

In a visual trade, the photographs are the interview. Nobody hires a smith on prose.

1. 1Photograph everything you make, on a plain background, in daylight. Twelve good photographs beat sixty bad ones.
2. 2Show process as well as product: a fire weld in progress, a heat treatment setup, a joint before finishing. Forge owners judge technique from those more than from the finished piece.
3. 3Put the link in your contact line at the top of the CV. Not in a bullet, not at the bottom.
4. 4For each piece worth naming, note the material, the size and how long it took. "Forged mild steel gate, 1.8 by 2.4 m, 90 hours, riveted joinery throughout" tells a forge what your hands are worth per hour.
5. 5If you are applying as an apprentice, list the courses, workshops and hours you have logged, plus any related hands-on work: welding, farm repair, vehicle body work, machining, joinery. Physical trades transfer.
6. 6Say you own tools if you own tools. A smith with their own hammers, tongs and an anvil is easier to hire than one who needs a bench set up from scratch.

One page. Plain layout. No photo of yourself, no date of birth, no graphics. Send a PDF and paste the text into the email as well, because most of these workshops read email on a phone in a noisy building.

• Put the equipment list where it can be scanned. Forge owners read equipment lists the way software engineers read a tech stack.
• If you are applying to an industrial forge or a large manufacturer, they will use an applicant tracking system. Mirror their words: forging, die setting, heat treatment, drop hammer, press operator, reading engineering drawings, first-off inspection, scrap rate.
• For bespoke and artist forges, the CV matters less than the portfolio and the recommendation. Send both, and name any smith who will vouch for you.
• Be specific about lifting and conditions. Forges run hot, loud and heavy, and owners want to hear that you know it.
• If you are self-employed, put your own forge on the CV as a job with dates, turnover range and the number of commissions. It is a job.

“Send me pictures first. I can teach somebody my way of doing a scroll, but I cannot teach them to care what the corner looks like. The CV tells me if they can pass a weld test and show up. The photographs tell me if I want them at the anvil next to mine.”