Industrial Painter (Protective Coatings) CV Examples & Writing Guide

A shop and site industrial painter working structural steel, tanks and equipment, with powder coating experience on the shop side. Name and employers are invented. The numbers are ones a real painter can pull from job sheets, inspection reports and rework logs.

People search for this exact thing, usually because the job is hard to describe on paper. Here are the duties written as CV lines. Take the ones you have actually done and add your own numbers.

• Prepare surfaces by abrasive blasting, power tool cleaning, hand tool cleaning, solvent wiping and pressure washing to the ISO 8501-1 grade the specification calls for.
• Check surface profile with replica tape and confirm the surface is clean and dry before coating.
• Record ambient temperature, surface temperature, relative humidity and dew point at the start of each coating window.
• Mix 2-pack coatings to the manufacturer's ratio, respect induction time, and track pot life through the batch.
• Set up and operate airless, conventional, HVLP and electrostatic spray equipment, including pump ratio, pressure, hose and tip selection.
• Apply primer, intermediate and topcoat systems to the specified wet and dry film thickness, checking with a wet film gauge during application and a DFT gauge afterwards.
• Mask, tape and protect adjacent surfaces, threads, machined faces and nameplates.
• Touch up, feather and repair coating damage, and strip and recoat rejected work.
• Clean, flush and maintain guns, pots, hoses and filters, and keep the booth and blast room working.
• Handle and dispose of solvents, thinners and waste abrasive under COSHH and the site's hazardous waste rules.
• Wear and maintain air-fed or filtering respirators (RPE), complete face fit testing, and follow confined space entry procedures.
• Complete daily coating logs, job sheets and inspection paperwork for the client or the third-party inspector.

• What you spray. Epoxies, polyurethanes, zinc-rich primers, coal tar epoxy, intumescent fire protection, powder. Each behaves differently and shops hire for the ones they run.
• What you blast to. Sa 2 and Sa 2½ are different jobs with different production rates. Naming the ISO 8501-1 grade says you have worked to a written spec.
• Whether you measure. Wet film during application, DFT after. A painter who checks their own work saves the shop a rejection.
• Rework and first-pass rate. This is the number the shop cares about most, because rework costs abrasive, coating, booth time and schedule.
• Site versus shop. Site work means weather windows, scaffolding, containment and travel. Shop work means booth time, throughput and consistency. Say which you have done.
• Safety status. Face fit testing and health surveillance, confined space, a CSCS card for site work, IOSH Working Safely, lead and silica awareness. A painter who arrives already cleared can start sooner.
• Reliability. Attendance and the ability to work the overtime a project needs. Shops lose money on empty booths.

“Give me a CV that says Sa 2½, DFT and a rework percentage and I will hire that person over a nicer looking one every time. Anybody can pull a trigger. I need somebody who knows why the coating failed and does not let it happen twice.”

• Application: airless spray, conventional (air) spray, HVLP, electrostatic, powder coating, brush and roller for touch-up and stripe coating.
• Preparation: abrasive blasting (steel grit, garnet, copper slag, glass bead), power tool cleaning, needle gun, hand tool cleaning, solvent wipe, pressure washing, sweep blasting.
• Standards: ISO 8501-1 blast cleaning grades (Sa 1 to Sa 3) and hand and power tool grades (St 2, St 3), surface profile to ISO 8503 measured with replica tape, and SSPC grades where a US-specified job calls for them.
• Coatings: 2-pack epoxy, polyurethane, zinc-rich primer (organic and inorganic), coal tar epoxy, alkyd enamel, moisture-cure urethane, intumescent fire protection, powder.
• Measurement: wet film gauges, magnetic and electronic DFT gauges, whirling hygrometer or digital dew point meter, surface temperature gauge, holiday detection if you have run it.
• Equipment: airless pumps and ratio settings, tip sizes, hose and whip lines, pressure pots, blast pots and nozzles, dehumidifiers, containment and booth ventilation, curing ovens.
• Safety: air-fed and filtering RPE, face fit testing, confined space entry, lead paint and silica awareness, working at height, MEWPs, hazardous waste handling.
• Paperwork: coating specifications, product data sheets, coating logs, job sheets, inspection reports.
• Traits shops name in adverts: patience with prep, attention to runs and sags, attendance, willingness to work overtime.

• ICATS (the Industrial Coating Applicator Training Scheme) is the applicator card many UK clients and main contractors ask for, especially on infrastructure work. List the card and the year you last renewed it.
• AMPP is the international body to know. SSPC and NACE merged in 2021 to form AMPP (the Association for Materials Protection and Performance), so older certificates may say SSPC or NACE and current ones say AMPP. Its Coating Application Specialist (CAS) credential is recognised on international and offshore work. List whichever your certificate actually says, with the year.
• Lead awareness and lead work supervision training matter for bridge and older structural work, where the Control of Lead at Work Regulations apply.
• IOSH Working Safely for shop work, and a CSCS card if you work on construction sites.
• Face fit testing for tight-fitting RPE, and health surveillance for isocyanates and other hazards under COSHH. This is not a qualification, but employers must have it in place, and saying yours is current is a genuine advantage.
• Confined space entry, working at height, scaffold awareness, IPAF for MEWPs, forklift, and COSHH awareness.
• Silica awareness training, which applies to blasting and to grinding on coated steel.
• Manufacturer training on a specific coating system is worth a line if you completed it.
• There is no licence to work as an industrial painter in the UK. If you want to move up, coating inspector qualifications such as FROSIO, ICorr or AMPP inspector are the usual next step, so mention one if you are working towards it.

Most shops hire labourers and trainees and train them on the gun over a year or two. The CV that gets picked shows you will turn up, tolerate the prep work, and wear the respirator properly.

1. 1Get face fit tested if you can, and say so at the top. It removes a hiring delay for the employer.
2. 2List IOSH Working Safely or a CSCS card and any forklift or MEWP card. All are short courses and all are asked for.
3. 3Write any spraying you have done, even outside industry: vehicle body repair, furniture finishing, painting and decorating, farm machinery. Say the equipment and the material.
4. 4Show tolerance for the unglamorous half of the job. Masking, sanding, clean-up and blast room work are what a trainee actually does, so name them rather than hiding them.
5. 5Put attendance in writing. "Full attendance over 14 months" is a real selling point in a trade where the booth sits empty when someone does not turn up.
6. 6State your availability for overtime, weekends and travel. Shop work spikes with the client's schedule.
7. 7Use a career objective and name the work you want: structural steel shop, marine, powder line or bridge work on site.

• One page is usually enough, two at most. Shop foremen and supervisors read fast and often on a phone.
• Reverse-chronological, single column, plain headings, no graphics.
• Put your safety status and qualifications near the top: face fit testing, ICATS, CSCS or IOSH card, confined space, MEWPs. These are hiring gates, not nice extras.
• No photo, no date of birth. If your document says resume because you trained in the US, retitle it CV for UK applications.
• PDF unless the advert asks for Word. File name: Lastname_Firstname_Industrial_Painter.pdf.
• Mirror the advert exactly: industrial painter, spray painter, blaster painter, grit blasting, abrasive blasting, surface preparation, Sa 2½, ISO 8501-1, epoxy, polyurethane, zinc primer, DFT, microns, airless spray, electrostatic, powder coating, containment, confined space, RPE, ICATS.
• If the contractor works on major infrastructure or offshore projects, say which sites and main contractors you have worked for.