Cabinet Maker CV Examples & Writing Guide
A cabinet maker CV gets a callback when a workshop foreman can tell in ten seconds what you build (frameless or face-frame cabinetry, or one-off furniture), which machines you run without supervision, whether you can read shop drawings and a cutting list, and whether you fit as well as build.
Cabinet maker CV example (bespoke workshop, 10 years, bench and CNC)
This sample is a bench cabinet maker in a bespoke workshop who also runs the CNC and goes out on installations. The name, workshops and college are made up. If you work in a production factory on one station, keep the layout and swap the bench bullets for cycle times, machine set-ups and scrap rates.
Adam Ferreira
Cabinet Maker
High Wycombe · 07700 900163 | adam.ferreira@email.com | portfolio: adamferreira.work
Summary
Cabinet maker with 10 years in bespoke residential and light commercial joinery. Builds frameless and face-frame (in-frame) cabinetry from shop drawings, runs a 3-axis nested-base CNC, and installs kitchens and fitted furniture on site. Typical year: 20 to 24 kitchens plus commercial reception and library packages, with sheet material yield held above 88%.
Experience
Cabinet Maker and CNC Operator · Bespoke joinery workshop, 14 employees (residential kitchens and commercial cabinetry)
May 2021 - Present
- Build 20 to 24 kitchens a year in frameless 18 mm prefinished birch ply, from cutting list to hung doors, plus commercial reception desks and library shelving in high-pressure laminate.
- Run the 3-axis nested-base CNC (Cabinet Vision to G-code): nesting, tool changes, tooling maintenance and first-off checks; held sheet yield above 88% by fixing nest layouts and grain-direction rules.
- Cut edge banding and line boring waste by standardising a 32 mm system across the workshop, which removed roughly 6 hours a week of hand drilling.
- Install 2 to 3 kitchens a month on site: scribe to out-of-plumb walls, level and pack base runs, hang doors with Blum soft-close hardware and set drawer fronts to a 3 mm gap.
- Cut the snagging rate from about 4 items per kitchen to 1.2 by adding a pre-delivery checklist covering fixings, gaps, finish and hardware alignment.
Bench Cabinet Maker · Architectural joinery firm, 40 employees (healthcare and education contracts)
Aug 2018 - Apr 2021
- Built face-frame and frameless cabinetry to architects' specifications for hospital and university projects, including 90 consulting room cabinets on a single hospital fit-out.
- Ran panel saw, edge bander, line borer, wide-belt sander and carcass press, and set up the beam saw for runs of 40-plus sheets.
- Assembled and squared 35 to 45 carcasses a week with a remake rate under 1%, checking diagonals on every carcass before banding.
- Cut solid-wood doors and drawer boxes with dovetailed corners on a jig, and repaired damaged veneer panels rather than scrapping them, saving about £3,000 of material a year.
Workshop Assistant, then Apprentice Cabinet Maker · Two-person furniture and cabinet workshop
Jun 2016 - Jul 2018
- Started on sanding, glue-ups and clean-up, moved to machine work in month 9 and to building carcasses solo in year 2.
- Learned hand joinery on 12 furniture commissions: mortise and tenon frames, dovetailed drawers and hand-planed solid tops.
Education
Level 3 college course in furniture making (2 years, full-time)
Further education college, Buckinghamshire, 2016
A-levels
Sixth form college, High Wycombe, 2014
Certifications
- NVQ Level 2 Diploma in Wood Occupations (bench joinery), on-site assessment, 2019
- CSCS Blue Skilled Worker card, valid to 2027
- Counterbalance forklift (accredited), 2023
- Emergency First Aid at Work, valid to 2027
Skills
What a workshop foreman looks for first
Workshops hire for the gap they have right now: a bench hand, a CNC operator, a sprayer or a fitter. Four things tell the foreman which one you are.
- What you build. Frameless and face-frame cabinetry, architectural joinery, fitted wardrobes, shopfitting or one-off furniture are different trades in practice. Name yours in the first line.
- Which machines you run unsupervised. There is a real difference between using a table saw and setting up a beam saw, an edge bander or a line borer. Say set up, not used.
- Can you read drawings and work off a cutting list? Workshops lose money on remakes. A bullet about reading shop drawings, checking diagonals or a first-off check says you are not one of those costs.
- Do you install? Fitters are harder to find than makers, because the job needs someone presentable in a customer's house who can scribe to a wall that is out of plumb. If you install, say it in the personal statement.
“Everybody writes that they are detail-oriented. Show me a remake rate, or a snagging list that got shorter, or the sheet yield you hold. Three numbers like that and I know what your bench looks like before you ever walk into my workshop.”
Cabinet maker personal statement examples
Three lines. What you build, which machines and software, the annual or weekly volume, one quality number. Skip passionate about woodworking; the volume and the tolerance say it better.
Cabinet maker with 10 years in bespoke residential and light commercial joinery. Builds frameless and face-frame cabinetry from shop drawings, runs a 3-axis nested-base CNC and installs on site. About 22 kitchens a year with sheet yield above 88% and a remake rate under 1%.
Cabinet assembler with 5 years in a kitchen production factory running 400-plus carcasses a week. Sets up the edge bander and carcass press, assembles and squares 60 to 70 carcasses a shift, and holds scrap under 2%. Cross-trained on the line borer and the drawer box cell.
Furniture maker with 6 years building commissioned pieces in solid hardwood: hand-cut dovetails, mortise-and-tenon frames, bent lamination and hand-rubbed oil finishes. Delivered 40-plus commissioned pieces, and drafts every job in SketchUp before the first cut.
Cabinet fitter and maker with 9 years, running 3-person fitting teams on kitchens, fitted wardrobes and commercial cabinetry. Averages 2 kitchen installations a week, scribes and levels to finished tolerance, and handles worktop templating and appliance fit.
Furniture-making college leaver with a two-year Level 3 course and 18 months in a 14-person workshop. Runs table saw, panel saw, thicknesser and edge bander, builds and squares frameless carcasses to the cutting list, and holds IOSH Working Safely. Looking for a bench position with CNC training.
Cabinet maker job description bullets that show real skill
Add the material, the tolerance, the machine set-up or the count. That is the whole difference between a generic duty and a bullet a foreman believes.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Built custom cabinets. | Built 20 to 24 kitchens a year in frameless 18 mm prefinished birch ply, from cutting list through hung doors and set drawer fronts. |
| Operated woodworking machinery. | Set up and ran panel saw, beam saw, edge bander, line borer and wide-belt sander, including tooling changes and first-off checks on runs of 40-plus sheets. |
| Used a CNC machine. | Ran a 3-axis nested-base CNC from Cabinet Vision output: nesting, tool paths, tooling maintenance, and yield above 88% after correcting nest layouts and grain rules. |
| Read technical drawings. | Work from architectural shop drawings and specifications to the architect's finish standard, producing my own cutting lists and hardware schedules for each job. |
| Assembled cabinets. | Assemble and square 35 to 45 carcasses a week, checking diagonals on every carcass before banding, with a remake rate under 1%. |
| Installed cabinets on site. | Install 2 to 3 kitchens a month: scribe to out-of-plumb walls, level and pack base runs and set door and drawer gaps to 3 mm. |
| Did finishing work. | Spray acid-catalysed and pre-catalysed lacquers with an HVLP system in an extracted spray booth, including sanding sequence, sealer coats and cure times. |
| Worked with hardware. | Install Blum and Grass soft-close hinges and undermount runners, bore to a 32 mm system and adjust to consistent gaps across a 14-door run. |
| Kept the workshop clean and safe. | Maintained machine guarding, dust extraction and blade changes on 6 machines and worked 3 years with no reportable injuries in the workshop. |
| Fixed mistakes. | Repaired damaged veneer panels and hardware misalignments instead of scrapping, saving about £3,000 of material a year. |
Start with an example, finish in minutes.
No sign-up needed to start. Pick an example, adapt it with suggestions and preview it as you go.
Cabinet maker skills for a CV
Separate hand skills, machines, software and site work. A production factory and a one-off furniture workshop want almost opposite halves of this list, so order it for the job you are applying to.
- Construction types: frameless (32 mm European system), face frame, inset doors, dovetailed drawer boxes, fitted wardrobes and shopfitting, architectural joinery to the architect's specification
- Joinery: housing, rebate, dowel, pocket screw, biscuit and loose tenon, mortise and tenon, hand-cut dovetails, bent lamination
- Machines: table saw, panel saw, beam saw, sliding table saw, surface planer, thicknesser, spindle moulder, router table, line borer, edge bander, wide-belt sander, carcass press, dovetail machine
- CNC: 3-axis router, nested-base manufacturing, tool paths and tooling, vacuum hold-down, nesting for yield
- Software: Cabinet Vision, Microvellum, AlphaCAM, AutoCAD, SketchUp, and shop drawing and cutting list production
- Materials: hardwood plywood, MDF, melamine-faced chipboard, prefinished ply, solid hardwoods, veneer, high-pressure laminate, solid surface, vinyl-wrapped MDF
- Finishing: sanding sequence, staining, sealer and topcoat, acid-catalysed lacquer, pre-catalysed lacquer, HVLP spraying, touch-up and repair
- Site work: measuring and site survey, scribing, levelling and packing, fixing to studwork or masonry, worktop templating, appliance and filler fit
- Safety and workshop: machine guarding, dust extraction, IOSH Working Safely, forklift, manual handling of sheets, keeping to a workshop schedule
Training, cards and photos of your work
No licence is needed to work as a cabinet maker in the UK. What matters is verifiable training, safety cards and evidence of what your work looks like.
- NVQs and diplomas: a Level 2 or Level 3 NVQ in wood occupations (bench joinery) or a college qualification in furniture making. These are the closest thing the trade has to a portable skills record.
- College courses in furniture making, bench joinery or carpentry, plus any certificated woodworking machinery training (for example on the spindle moulder). Give the level and the length, because a two-year full-time course and a weekend course are not the same thing.
- Apprenticeship time, whether a formal furniture-making or joinery apprenticeship or in-house training. Say what you moved on to and when: sanding to machine work in month 9, building carcasses solo in year 2.
- Safety and site cards: a CSCS card, forklift, and IPAF for scissor or boom lifts if you install in commercial buildings, plus Emergency First Aid at Work. Main contractors will not let you on site without a valid CSCS card.
- FSC or PEFC chain of custody familiarity, if your workshop is certified. Write it as a skill, not as a personal certification, because these schemes certify companies rather than individuals.
- A full UK driving licence and a clean record if the job includes installations and driving the workshop van.
Photos are the strongest thing you have and almost nobody sends them. Put a single portfolio link in the header (a simple page or an album is fine) and mention the piece types. Six clear photos of finished work, one of a joinery detail and one of a completed installation beat a page of adjectives. In the UK the same work is often advertised as bench joinery or fitted furniture making. Leave a photo of yourself off the CV, even though photos of your work belong in the portfolio.
Cabinet maker CV with little or no workshop experience
Workshops hire assistants constantly: sanding, glue-ups, sorting parts, clean-up and loading. That is the way in, and the CV should aim at it honestly.
- 1Career objective, three lines: the position you want (workshop assistant, assembler, apprentice), what you already know how to do safely, and that you want to learn the trade.
- 2List every machine you have actually used, even at school, college or in a home workshop, and say what you built with it.
- 3Home and school projects count if you describe them like work: material, joinery, dimensions and finish. A built-in bookcase in birch ply with a housed-and-glued carcass and a wiped-on polyurethane finish is a real bullet.
- 4Add related physical work: site carpentry, flooring, flat-pack assembly, warehouse, anything with sheet materials, hand tools, measuring or lifting.
- 5Put IOSH Working Safely on the page. It is a short course, usually one day, and workshops read it as a sign you are serious.
- 6Three or four photos of your own work, linked. At this level, that is the whole interview.
- 7Say plainly that you can read a tape to the millimetre and do workshop maths. Foremen ask this in the first five minutes, and many candidates fail it.
Built a 2.1 m wall unit in birch plywood with housed shelves, an applied face frame and adjustable shelf pins bored on a jig, finished with three coats of wiped-on polyurethane varnish.
Carpenter's labourer for 2 years: read drawings, cut to a list, kept material waste low on 8 new-build houses and worked full days handling 8x4 sheets and 4.8 m lengths.
Furniture-making college leaver seeking a workshop assistant or assembler role with a path to bench work. Safe and accurate on table saw, mitre saw, thicknesser and router, reads a tape to the millimetre, holds IOSH Working Safely and can lift sheet materials all day.
Format, length and the job advert words to mirror
- One page. Two only if you have run a workshop or led fitting teams for many years.
- No photo of yourself, no date of birth, no marital status; UK CVs leave them out. Photos of your work go behind a portfolio link.
- Single column with plain headings. Larger joinery companies and furniture manufacturers screen through an ATS, and design flourishes come out broken.
- Put a machine and software line near the top so a foreman does not have to hunt for it.
- Say whether you have your own hand tools. Many workshops expect a basic kit and it is a real question at interview.
- Mention travel and installation work if you do it: overnight jobs, commercial fit-outs away from home, weekend installations.
| Job advert says | Put on your CV |
|---|---|
| Experience with frameless and face-frame construction | Frameless 32 mm and face-frame cabinetry, inset and overlay doors, dovetailed drawer boxes |
| Able to read shop drawings | Works from architectural shop drawings and specifications, produces own cutting lists and hardware schedules |
| CNC experience desirable | 3-axis nested-base CNC from Cabinet Vision output, nesting, tooling and yield above 88% |
| Site installation required | 2 to 3 kitchen installations a month, scribing, levelling, packing and 3 mm door gaps |
| Must maintain quality standards | Remake rate under 1%, snagging list reduced from about 4 items per kitchen to 1.2 |
Frequently asked questions
How do I write a cabinet maker CV?
Open with a 3-line personal statement naming what you build, which machines and software you run, your yearly or weekly volume and one quality number. Give each job 3 to 5 bullets with materials, tolerances and counts. Add a skills block split into construction types, machines, CNC and software, list your qualifications and cards, and link photos of your work. One page.
What skills should a cabinet maker put on a CV?
Construction types (frameless 32 mm, face frame, inset), joinery (housing, dowel, mortise and tenon, dovetail), machines you set up (panel saw, edge bander, line borer, wide-belt sander), CNC and the software behind it (Cabinet Vision, Microvellum, AlphaCAM), materials, finishing, and installation skills such as scribing and levelling. Add IOSH Working Safely, a CSCS card and a forklift certificate if you have them.
What is a cabinet maker's job description for a CV?
Reading shop drawings and producing cutting lists, cutting and machining sheet materials and solid timber, assembling and squaring carcasses, boring and fitting hardware, edge banding, sanding and finishing, and often installing the finished work on site with scribing and levelling. Write it as your own volumes and tolerances instead of copying the list.
Do I need a qualification to work as a cabinet maker?
No licence is required in the UK. An NVQ at Level 2 or 3 in wood occupations or a college furniture-making qualification is the recognised record of your skills, and an apprenticeship or college course helps at entry level. Woodworking machinery training and a forklift certificate matter in the workshop, and main contractors require a valid CSCS card before you can install on their sites.
How do I write a cabinet maker CV with no experience?
Aim at the workshop assistant or assembler job that workshops fill constantly. Write a career objective naming that role, list every machine you have safely used, describe school or home projects with the material, joinery and finish, add IOSH Working Safely, and link photos. State that you read a tape to the millimetre and can do workshop maths, because it gets asked early.
Should I include a portfolio with a cabinet maker CV?
Yes. It is the strongest evidence in the trade and most applicants skip it. Put one link in the header to a simple page or album with six or eight clear photos, including a joinery close-up and a finished installation. Note the material and construction type under each photo so a foreman can judge the work.
Is a furniture maker CV different from a cabinet maker CV?
The vocabulary shifts. Furniture work emphasises solid hardwood, hand joinery, design and finish quality, so lead with commissions, techniques and photos. Cabinet and joinery workshops emphasise sheet materials, carcass volume, CNC, hardware and installations, so lead with counts, machines and tolerances. Keep two versions if you apply to both.
How long should a cabinet maker CV be?
One page for nearly everyone. Two only if you have supervised a workshop, led fitting teams or done estimating as well as building. Keep your last two jobs detailed and cut older ones to a title, employer and dates.
Ready to write yours?
The builder suggests a summary from your own experience, then checks it against the job posting.
How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.