Long-Distance HGV Driver CV Examples & Writing Guide

A CV for a long-distance Class 1 driver with a C+E licence and an ADR certificate for packages and tanks. The name and operators are invented. Notice that the licence details sit in the header, every job says which vehicles and what kind of work, and the safety record has numbers behind it.

Haulage hiring is partly a compliance and insurance decision, not just a hiring decision. The person hiring is checking whether their insurer will accept you before they think about whether they like you.

• Licence category and qualifications. C or C+E, plus Driver CPC, a digital tachograph card and ADR if you hold it. ADR and tanker work open better-paid jobs, so say what your ADR covers (packages, tanks, any extra classes) as well as naming the certificate.
• Checkable months of experience. Many operators and their insurers set a minimum, often somewhere between 6 months and 2 years on Class 1 before nights out or tanker work. Put month and year on every job so the total is easy to add up.
• Safety record. Blameworthy accidents, licence points, DVSA roadside check results and any prohibitions. Employers will check your licence with the DVLA and look at your tachograph data, so what you write has to match.
• Medical and screening status. Your Group 2 medical is in date (it is needed when you first apply and again from age 45), and you are ready for the operator's drug and alcohol screening.
• Nights out and work pattern. If an operator runs nights out Monday to Friday, they want to know that suits you. Saying what pattern you want (tramping, trunking, days or nights) saves both sides a wasted phone call.

“You can tell in five seconds whether a driver CV was written by someone who has been on the road. Licence class, qualifications, medical date, months of checkable long-haul work, accidents and roadside checks. If those five things are in the header, we call. If they take hunting for, there are forty other applications in the queue.”

Write the licence line the way a transport manager reads it: category, Driver CPC (DQC) expiry, digital tachograph card, and ADR if you hold it. Do not print your driving licence number or tachograph card number on a CV you post publicly, since those are details people copy.

• Required to drive an articulated lorry for a living: a category C+E licence, a Driver CPC and a digital tachograph card. You need a Group 2 medical when you first apply for the lorry entitlement, and the Driver CPC initial qualification before you drive professionally.
• Qualifications that change what you can haul: ADR for dangerous goods, with packages and tanks as separate specialisms on top of the core module and some classes, such as explosives, as further add-ons; category D if you ever move into passenger work.
• Common extras worth naming: a passport for continental work, a port or airside pass if you have held one, and any Driver CPC course you completed on safe urban or fuel-efficient driving.
• Northern Ireland licences and tachograph cards are handled by the DVA rather than the DVLA, so check the right agency for renewal timing rather than copying what a friend did.
• If your Driver CPC, tachograph card or ADR certificate is due for renewal, say when. Employers plan around it and will not hold it against you.

Three or four lines. Lead with years and miles, then vehicles, then safety. Use a career objective only if you have just passed your test.

The duties are the same for every driver. The difference is miles, type of work, on-time rate and safety record.

Skip generic lines like "hardworking". List vehicles, systems and conditions, because those map to the work the operator actually does.

• Vehicles: 13.6-metre curtainsider, box and fridge trailers, flatbed and step frame, food-grade or chemical tanker, drawbar, day cab versus sleeper cab.
• Systems: Microlise or Samsara telematics, the digital tachograph, the operator's driver app, fuel cards such as Keyfuels or Allstar.
• Rules and paperwork: drivers' hours and working time rules, walk-round checks and defect reports, delivery notes and CMR notes, ADR transport documents and orange plates, axle weights, abnormal load notifications.
• Handling: load security (straps, chains, load bars, sheeting), fridge set-up and temperature checks, drop and swap, live unloading, reversing onto tight loading bays.
• Conditions you have driven: hill routes and winter snow on the Pennines and in the Highlands, city-centre deliveries, Channel crossings and continental driving, nights.
• The human side that operators do pay for: keeping the traffic office updated, staying calm at a customer that made you wait five hours, keeping a clean cab and clean paperwork.

Most operators that take on newly qualified drivers have a mentor or new-driver programme, and they are hiring for reliability and a clean record rather than skill. Your CV needs to show both.

1. 1Put the licence line at the top with the pass date, Driver CPC and tachograph card, even if the ink is a week old.
2. 2Name the training provider and the course, and say you hold the Driver CPC initial qualification. Add hours behind the wheel and reversing practice if you tracked them.
3. 3Give your clean record as a number: years licensed, accidents, points. "Clean licence, 9 years driving, no points" beats "safe driver".
4. 4Turn old jobs into evidence of turning up. Warehouse, van delivery, construction, Armed Forces, farm work all count. Use attendance, hours, weights handled and equipment operated.
5. 5Say clearly what you will accept: nights out, regions, whether you will start with a mentor. Recruiters for new drivers screen hard on fit with the work pattern.

Driving is one of the few fields where leaving a job off your CV creates a real problem. Operators and driving agencies check your recent driving history and take references from previous employers, so what you write gets compared with what they are told.

• List every driving job with month and year, in order, with no holes. If you worked somewhere for six weeks and it went badly, it still goes on the page.
• Explain gaps in a short line: "Aug 2023 to Nov 2023: caring for a family member" or "Jan 2024 to Mar 2024: recovering from surgery, returned to work with no restrictions". A stated gap is normal; an unstated one looks like a hidden dismissal.
• If you were dismissed or had an accident, do not write the whole story on the CV. Keep it factual and be ready to explain it in the first call.
• Keep the CV, the operator's or agency's application form and your references consistent on dates and employer names. Recruiters compare them side by side.
• Owner-driver or agency time counts as employment. Name your own operator's licence or the agencies you worked through, and the years.

• One page for most drivers. Two only if you have more than about fifteen years and the extra page is employment history, not description.
• Plain layout, no columns, no graphics. UK conventions: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status. Many job boards and agency systems parse badly, and transport managers often print CVs.
• The CV usually does not replace the operator's or agency's application form. Treat it as the thing that gets you the phone call and expect to fill in the long form, with a licence check, afterwards.
• Mirror the advert: if it says tramper, say tramper. If it says trunking, nights, days, continental or double-shifted, use that word. Add the phrases recruiters search for when they are true: Class 1, C+E, ADR, tanker, flatbed, fridge, curtainsider, Driver CPC, digital tachograph, drop and swap, clean licence, no blameworthy accidents.
• In the US this job is advertised as an over-the-road (OTR) truck driver with CDL classes and endorsements; for UK operators keep UK licence categories and UK terms.

One last thing worth doing before you apply anywhere: check your own record on the GOV.UK view driving licence service and make sure your Driver CPC and tachograph card dates are right. It is free, takes a few minutes, and it is much better to find an error yourself than to have a recruiter find it while you are on the phone.