Greenhouse Worker CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a greenhouse worker with about seven years: seasonal bedding plant work first, then a year-round salad glasshouse, now a crop care team leader in a hydroponic tomato glasshouse. The person and the employers are invented. Copy the shape and put your own crops, rates and training in.

Greenhouse hiring is done by the grower, a crop manager or a labour supervisor. They are usually short-staffed and they read for four things.

• Crops and systems. Bedding plants, cut flowers, glasshouse tomatoes, lettuce on a moving gutter and soft fruit under polytunnels are all different work. Name the crops and whether it was soil, rockwool, coir or water culture.
• Rate. Every glasshouse tracks output per hour. Bringing your own numbers says you have worked to a standard and were not carried by the team.
• Pesticides and food safety. Which PA certificates you hold, whether you have mixed and applied or only worked to re-entry rules, and any audit you helped pass. This decides which jobs you can legally be given.
• Reliability and cover. Glasshouses run seven days. Saying you have covered weekend irrigation or responded to a climate alarm at night is a strong, specific signal.

“I hire in February and I need people who will still be here in June. If a CV says 1,400 plugs an hour and under two percent transplant loss, that person has been measured before and did not mind. Add weekend irrigation cover and current pesticide training and I will call them first.”

Three or four lines. Years, crops, one or two rates, then your spraying or food safety training. Use a career objective instead if this is your first greenhouse job.

Plenty of people search for a greenhouse job description to paste into a CV. Do not paste it. Take the duty and add your own number, crop and result. Here is what that looks like.

Keep it to what a crop manager can put you on tomorrow. Crop work, growing systems, then the practical realities.

Crop work:

• Seeding, sticking cuttings, transplanting, spacing and potting on
• High-wire crop work: clipping, lowering, deleafing, truss pruning, pollination
• Pinching, staking, trellising and training
• Harvest, grading, weighing and packing to supermarket spec
• Removing substandard plants, plant health checks and crop registration
• Propagation: mist and fog benches, rooting hormone, young plant grading

Systems and equipment:

• Hydroponic growing: rockwool, coir, NFT, deep water culture, moving gutter
• Fertigation, dosing units, EC and pH meters, drain measurement
• Climate computer screens and alarms (Priva, Hoogendoorn, Ridder)
• Vents, thermal screens, heating pipes, fans and CHP or biomass heating
• Boom irrigation, drip lines, hand watering by house position
• Sprayers and biological control release, under PA1/PA6 or a certificated colleague
• Pipe rail trolley, scissor lift, pallet truck, potting machine, tray filler

Practical facts growers care about:

• Working at rate in 30 to 35°C and high humidity for a full shift
• Weekend, bank holiday and early morning availability
• Accurate record keeping for food safety and spray records
• Reliable transport to a rural site
• English plus any second language, and which one your team leaders speak

Greenhouse work sits under real rules, and knowing which ones you have completed changes what jobs you can be given. Be precise, because these are checked at audit.

• Pesticide application certificates. In the UK, anyone applying professional plant protection products at work generally needs PA1 (the foundation module) plus the module for the kit, usually PA6 for hand-held applicators such as knapsack sprayers and lances, from City & Guilds NPTC or Lantra. Name the modules and the year.
• Working towards a certificate. Trainees can usually apply only under the direct supervision of a certificate holder while they train. If that is you, write "working towards PA1/PA6" rather than implying you are certificated. If you never apply, say you work to the site's re-entry rules after spraying.
• Food safety. If your glasshouse grows produce, name the assurance scheme you worked under, such as Red Tractor Fresh Produce, GLOBALG.A.P., LEAF Marque or a packhouse BRCGS audit, and the year and result if you know it.
• Equipment training. Scissor lift (IPAF if it is a MEWP), pipe rail trolley, forklift (RTITB or similar), pallet truck. Short courses, but they matter for scheduling.
• Emergency First Aid at Work (one day) or First Aid at Work (three days), with the year so the employer can see it is in date.
• Education. A Level 2 or Level 3 qualification in horticulture, an RHS Level 2 certificate or a horticulture or crop technician apprenticeship helps if you want to move towards assistant grower. Without one, years plus rates carry the CV.

• One page. Growers and crop managers read fast and often on a phone in a break room.
• No photo, no date of birth and no marital status on a UK CV, even though some overseas templates include them.
• Label seasonal jobs clearly, for example "Feb 2019 – Jan 2021 (seasonal, Feb–Jul)", and say if you were asked back each year.
• Put availability near the top if you can work weekends, bank holidays or nights. That line alone gets people called.
• State your languages, your transport situation and, if it applies, your right to work in the UK. Rural growers ask about all three anyway.

Mirror the advert's words: greenhouse, glasshouse, polytunnel, propagation, plug, young plants, transplanting, spacing, fertigation, EC and pH, hydroponic, rockwool, NFT, high-wire, deleafing, IPM, scouting, biological control, PA1/PA6, harvest, grading, packing, hygiene. In the UK the same job is advertised as greenhouse worker, glasshouse operative, horticultural operative or crop worker, so use the advert's title. For US employers the document is a resume and they look for EPA Worker Protection Standard training instead of PA certificates.