Massage Therapist CV Examples & Writing Guide

This CV is for an experienced massage therapist who has worked in a health club spa, a chiropractic and sports injury clinic and a day spa. The name and businesses are made up. The qualifications sit right under the header, every job states treatments per week and rebooking or retention numbers, and the techniques are the ones spas and clinics actually search for.

Spas, clinics and health club chains are usually short of therapists, so the reader has one practical question: can this person go on the rota next week without an insurance problem or a run of bad reviews? Four things answer it.

• Qualifications and insurance. A recognised qualification at Level 3 or above, with the awarding body and year, plus current insurance. The UK has no national licence for massage therapists, so this is what employers and insurers check instead. Some councils, notably in London, license massage premises, and sometimes individual therapists; if you hold a council licence, say so.
• Techniques that match the menu. A day spa needs Swedish, deep tissue, pregnancy and hot stones. A chiropractic or physiotherapy clinic needs trigger point, myofascial release and SOAP notes. A sports club wants sports massage and stretching. Put the matching ones first.
• Volume, rebooking and reviews. Treatments per week tell them you can handle the load without injury; rebooking rate and review scores tell them clients come back. These are the three numbers that matter in this field.
• Availability. Spas are busiest Friday to Sunday and evenings. A therapist who states "available Thursday to Sunday including evenings" gets called before one who leaves the reader to guess.

“I check the qualification and the treatments against my menu, then I look for a rebooking number. Anyone can do a decent Swedish. A 65% rebook rate tells me clients ask for you again, and that is what fills my book.”

Give your main qualification its own line at the top of a "Qualifications and Insurance" section. Include the qualification title as your certificate writes it, the awarding body, the level and the year, then your insurance and any registration. Membership and registration numbers are optional; employers can check the CNHC register by name.

• No national licence in the UK: massage therapy is not a statutorily regulated profession, so there is no national exam or licence. Employers and insurers expect a recognised qualification instead, normally a Level 3 Diploma in Massage from an awarding body such as ITEC or VTCT, or a Level 3, 4 or 5 sports massage qualification for sports and clinic work.
• Voluntary but respected: registration with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), whose register is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority, and membership of a professional body such as the FHT, the Sports Massage Association or the Institute of Sports and Remedial Massage.
• Expected almost everywhere: a first aid certificate and insurance (professional indemnity and public liability, often through a professional body). If you work self-employed in London or another area where the council licenses massage, check whether you need your own licence and list it.
• CPD worth listing: pregnancy massage, oncology massage, sports massage, manual lymphatic drainage, cupping, hot stones, Thai massage, myofascial release, Indian head massage. Give the course hours and year; the CNHC and professional bodies expect ongoing CPD anyway.
• Do not write "qualified in" a technique you learned at college as one topic or from a weekend video. Write "trained in" unless a course issued a certificate with hours.

Use a personal statement once you have a year of paid practice. Use a career objective when you are newly qualified or changing settings (spa to clinic, employed to self-employed). Line one always carries the qualification, the years or hours, and the techniques.

Every massage therapist CV says "performed therapeutic massage" and "maintained a clean environment". Those are the job description. Add the setting, the volume, the technique and a client or business result.

List 10 to 14 skills, techniques first. Match the order to the employer's treatment menu, and separate what you were trained in from what you hold a certificate for.

• Techniques (spa): Swedish, deep tissue, hot stones, aromatherapy, pregnancy, couples, chair and Indian head massage, scalp and foot treatments, body scrubs and wraps if the spa offers them.
• Techniques (clinic and sports): trigger point therapy, myofascial release, neuromuscular technique, sports and pre/post-event massage, PNF and assisted stretching, manual lymphatic drainage, cupping, instrument-assisted techniques where your training and insurance cover them, oncology massage with training.
• Clinical skills: consultation and health history, contraindication screening (including when to ask for GP consent), range-of-motion assessment, SOAP notes, treatment plans agreed with referring physios or chiropractors, reports for insurers and rehab case managers.
• Business skills: rebooking, retail and add-on recommendations, package and membership sales, client communication, booking and clinic software (Phorest, Fresha, Mindbody, Zenoti, Cliniko, TM3).
• Safety and longevity: draping, hygiene and linen handling, body mechanics, couch setup, including hydraulic couches, working 5 to 6 treatments a day without strain.
• Working skills employers screen for: weekend and evening availability, punctual turnaround between treatments, a calm manner with anxious or first-time clients, and a second language where your clientele needs it.

Leave out "healing hands" and "passionate about wellness". The rebooking rate says it with proof.

A newly qualified therapist has more experience than "no experience" suggests: a Level 3 course with assessed case study treatments, a student clinic with real clients, and often related jobs such as healthcare assistant, fitness instructor, beauty therapist or spa receptionist. Spas and health club chains hire newly qualified therapists all the time. Your CV just has to put the hours on the page.

1. 1Header with your name and main qualification once the certificate is issued (Aisha Thompson, ITEC Level 3 Diploma in Massage). Before that, use your name only and put the expected result date in the first line below.
2. 2Qualification line: awarding body, level, status, assessment date or certificate date. Add first aid and insurance; both are cheap and both are asked about at interview.
3. 3Education next: college or training school, qualification, completion month, the techniques covered, and your student clinic hours with the number of clients seen. Lead with the clinic because it is your hands-on record.
4. 4Experience: any client-facing or care work with numbers (patients per shift, members served, appointments booked). Then any volunteer massage at events, sports clubs or hospices.
5. 5Availability line in the career objective. One page. No photo.

• One page is enough for most therapists, two at most. Even therapists with 15 years fit on one page: three or four settings, four bullets each, qualification and CPD lines.
• Order: header, qualifications and insurance, personal statement or career objective, experience, skills (techniques first), education. Some therapists put techniques directly under the personal statement; that works when the menu match is your strongest point.
• Plain format, no photo, no date of birth (standard in the UK). Large spa groups, hotel spas and health club chains use online application systems such as Workday or iCIMS to screen; tables and two columns lose the techniques list.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert: the techniques exactly as written ("deep tissue", "pregnancy massage", "hot stones", "sports massage", "myofascial release"), "Level 3" and the qualification named, "rebooking", "retail", "SOAP notes", "consultation", the booking software they name, and the shifts.
• Job title: use the advert's title in your headline (Massage Therapist, Spa Therapist, Sports Massage Therapist, Soft Tissue Therapist) and keep other versions in the personal statement. In the US the same document is a resume, the title is usually "Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT)" and it needs a state licence; the technique and volume advice is the same.
• Save as PDF: Aisha-Thompson-Massage-Therapist-CV.pdf. Bring your certificates, insurance certificate and first aid card to the interview; most employers will ask for a practical treatment.

Run the file through the cvplex ATS checker with the advert pasted in. It flags techniques in the advert that are missing from your CV and a qualifications line the parser could not read.