Bricklayer CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for an experienced bricklayer with about nine years in the trade: a three-year apprenticeship, three years with a residential and restoration builder, and three years on commercial jobs. The name, contractors and college are made up. Keep the layout and swap in your own production numbers, wall types and cards.

Brickwork contractors hire through the foreman or site manager, sometimes through a labour agency, and rarely through a recruiter. They are reading your CV to decide whether to put you on a wall on Monday. Four things decide it.

• Can you produce? Bricks or blocks per day on straight runs is the number every foreman knows for their gang. Give yours, and say what kind of wall (facework, inner leaf blockwork, foundations). 500+ bricks or 120–150 blocks a day is a solid rate for an experienced bricklayer; be honest. On price work you will also be asked your rate per thousand.
• Is your work plumb, level and clean? Corners and leads, tolerances, passing inspections without rework, matching bond and joint finish on restoration work. "Attention to detail" says nothing; "held corners within 3 mm over 3 m" does.
• Will you hurt yourself or the gang? CSCS card, SSSTS if you lead, silica controls, working at height, zero reportable injuries. Construction has one of the highest injury rates of any industry, and main contractors check.
• Can you turn up and travel? Your own tools (trowels, levels, jointers, line and pins), a driving licence and a van, willingness to travel between sites and to work through the winter.

“I want the number of bricks you lay a day, whether you can run a corner, and your CSCS card. Then I want to see your trowel work on the first morning. If a CV gives me those three, the lad is on the wall by Monday.”

Most bricklayer CVs describe the trade in general terms: "laid bricks and blocks", "mixed mortar", "followed safety rules". Every bricklayer does that. Rewrite each line with how many, what type of wall, what tolerance and what result. Six rewrites using real brickwork:

List 10 to 14 skills, wall types first, then setting out and drawing reading, then tools, plant and safety. A foreman reads this section to see if you can do their kind of work.

Brickwork and blockwork:

• Facing brickwork, stretcher bond and pattern bonds (Flemish, English, stack bond, soldier and header courses), imperial and metric bricks
• Blockwork: 100, 140 and 215 mm dense and lightweight blocks, lintels, padstones, piers, reinforced walls, foundation blockwork below DPC
• Corners, leads, gauge rods and profiles, keeping courses and perpends consistent; joint finishes (bucket handle, weatherstruck, recessed)
• Restoration: repointing, mortar matching, brick replacement, lime mortars, parapet and chimney stack rebuilds, cleaning
• Cavity trays, DPCs, weep vents, wall ties, movement joints, bed-joint reinforcement, cavity insulation
• Mortar designations M4, M6 and M12 and NHL lime mortars; mixing, batching and cold-weather working

Setting out, tools and plant:

• Reading architectural and structural drawings, specifications and details; setting out from grid lines with a laser or level
• Hand tools you own: brick and pointing trowels, jointers, levels (600 mm and 1.2 m), line and pins, lump hammer, bolster, tape and gauge rod
• Disc cutters and block splitters with silica dust controls; abrasive wheels trained
• Scaffold, trestles and mast climbers: working safely from them and checking them before use
• Telehandler, dumper, mortar mixer and hoist operation (with the right CPCS or NPORS card)

Safety and work habits (state them as facts, not adjectives): CSCS card, SSSTS if you lead, silica and working at height training, years without a reportable injury, attendance in bad weather, willingness to travel, a driving licence and your own transport.

A personal statement looks back; a career objective looks forward. Use an objective if you are applying for an apprenticeship or a labourer or hod carrier job with the aim of getting on the trowel. Three or four lines, with your daily rate and your CSCS card in the first two.

Bricklayers in the UK do not need a licence, but most building sites will not let you on without a CSCS card, and the card you can get depends on your qualifications. What counts on a CV is your apprenticeship or NVQ level, your CSCS card, and your safety and plant training; CITB is the industry training board behind much of it. List them with the issuer and the year.

• Apprenticeship and NVQ: a bricklaying apprenticeship at Level 2, or Level 3 for the advanced route, usually with day release at college, or the NVQ Level 2 or 3 Diploma in Trowel Occupations through on-site assessment if you are already experienced. Give the level and the completion year.
• College courses: a Level 1, 2 or 3 Diploma in Bricklaying (for example from City & Guilds or CITB) if you trained full-time. List the level you completed.
• CSCS card: the Blue Skilled Worker card needs an NVQ Level 2 (or an apprenticeship) plus the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test; the Gold Advanced Craft card needs NVQ Level 3. Put the colour and expiry date on your CV, because main contractors check it at the gate.
• Site safety: SSSTS for lead hands and supervisors, SMSTS for site managers. Say which you hold and the year.
• Silica dust and working at height: dust control training, RPE face-fit testing and working at height or PASMA tower training. HSE inspections regularly target dust and falls on building sites.
• Plant and tools: CPCS or NPORS cards for telehandler, forklift or dumper, IPAF for MEWPs and mast climbing work platforms, and abrasive wheels training for disc cutters.
• Education: GCSEs (especially English and Maths) plus your apprenticeship or NVQ is the standard line. College bricklaying courses go under education with the level.

Nobody is hired as a bricklayer with no experience. The way in is a bricklayer's labourer or hod carrier job (mixing mortar, loading out scaffold, cutting bricks) or an apprenticeship, and contractors fill both from people who show they are strong, safe and steady. Your CV should make that case with numbers from whatever work you have done.

1. 1Put the title you are applying for under your name: "Bricklayer's Labourer / Hod Carrier" or "Bricklaying Apprentice Applicant". Not "Construction Worker".
2. 2Get a CSCS Labourer card before you apply. You need the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test and a Level 1 Award in Health and Safety in a Construction Environment, and it is the first thing a foreman asks about.
3. 3Write a two-line career objective with your physical readiness (lifting, outdoor work, all weather), your licence and transport, and your goal of an apprenticeship.
4. 4Pull physical and safety work from any job: warehouse, landscaping, removals, farm work, demolition, roofing strip-outs, groundworks. Give each a number: kilos lifted, hours a week, days worked in a row, incidents (zero).
5. 5Mention anything brickwork-related: helping on a family project, a school or college construction course, a bricklaying course at a training centre, practice panels you have laid, tools you own.
6. 6Apply directly to brickwork contractors and housebuilders, and search the GOV.UK Find an apprenticeship service; many colleges and employer schemes recruit for September starts, so ask when.
7. 7One page, no photo, PDF, and carry printed copies to sites.

• One page. A foreman reads it in the van or the site cabin. Two pages only for foremen and site managers with a project list.
• Order: header with title, CSCS card and travel note, personal statement, cards and training, skills, experience, education. Cards go high because the CSCS and safety questions come first.
• Plain, single-column layout like the cvplex construction or ats-classic template. Print it in black and white; it will be photocopied and passed around. No photo, no date of birth.
• Use the title in the advert in your header: bricklayer, brickie, blocklayer, bricklayer and ganger, heritage bricklayer. Keep your real title in the experience section. Applicant tracking software at larger contractors searches for the exact word.
• Gaps between jobs are normal in brickwork (winter lay-offs, rained-off weeks, contracts ending). Label them as "seasonal lay-off" or "between contracts" rather than leaving them blank, and list short jobs with the contractor name and the project type.
• State plainly: own tools, full driving licence, willing to travel (and how far), and whether you want PAYE employment or self-employed work under CIS, on a day rate or price work.

Words to mirror from the advert when they are true for you: bricklayer, brickie, blocklayer, brickwork, blockwork, facework, cavity walls, corners, drawings, setting out, cavity trays, wall ties, repointing, restoration, stone, scaffold, telehandler, CSCS, NVQ Level 2, NVQ Level 3, SSSTS, silica, working at height, apprenticeship, commercial, residential, travel.