Motorcycle Mechanic CV Examples & Writing Guide

This is a mid-career technician at a multi-franchise motorcycle dealer. The name and the workshops are made up. Look at how much of the first half of the page is brands, manufacturer training, qualifications and sold hours. That is what a service manager scans for.

Service managers are filling a bay that is costing them money while it sits empty. They are not reading your CV for personality. They want to know what you can work on today, unsupervised.

• Brands and platforms. Harley V-twin work, Japanese inline-four work, European bikes, scooters and quads are different jobs. Name the makes and the engine families you have actually worked on.
• Qualifications and manufacturer training. Your Level 2 or Level 3 motorcycle qualification first, then Yamaha, Harley-Davidson, Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki, Triumph and BMW training, each of which carries weight at the dealer that sells that brand. List the modules by name and year.
• Productivity. Sold hours per week and your efficiency percentage. Many dealers pay a productivity bonus on top of the hourly rate; if you cannot say what you produce, you look like an apprentice.
• Comeback rate. The percentage of jobs that come back for the same fault. A low number here is worth more than any adjective on the page.
• Tools. Do you own a full set? Many workshops supply the special tools but expect you to bring everything else. Say so in one line.
• Diagnostics. The difference between a £13 an hour technician and a £20 an hour technician is usually electrical and fuel injection diagnosis, not stripping and rebuilding.

“Anyone can pull a wheel. What I pay for is the tech who can chase an intermittent no-start on a fuel-injected bike without throwing three parts at it. Show me your electrical diagnosis work and your comeback rate, and tell me which factory schools you sat. That decides whether I call.”

There is no licence you need to work as a motorcycle mechanic in the UK. What replaces it is a mix of recognised qualifications, manufacturer training, IMI Accreditation and, if you test bikes, MOT tester status. Never write a certificate you do not hold, because dealers check manufacturer training on the brand's own system and IMI Accreditation and MOT tester status can be checked too.

• Qualifications: a Level 2 or Level 3 Diploma in Motorcycle Maintenance and Repair (IMI, City & Guilds and other awarding bodies) or a completed motorcycle apprenticeship. Give the level, the awarding body or college and the year.
• Manufacturer training: Yamaha, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Triumph, BMW and Ducati programmes. Name the individual modules, not just the brand.
• IMI Accreditation: a practical assessment of your current skills that has to be renewed, so it is recent proof rather than an old college certificate. Give the level and renewal date.
• MOT tester status for Class 1 and 2 (motorcycles), with DVSA registration and your annual training and assessment up to date. You usually need a Level 3 qualification and several years of workshop experience before you can train as a tester.
• A full motorcycle licence (category A, or A2 if you are younger). You need it to road test most customer bikes, and workshops ask.
• Extras that get you paid more: dyno tuning training, electric motorcycle and scooter training (IMI TechSafe or manufacturer high-voltage courses), welding, and a clean licence for dealer transport runs.

People search hard for a good opening line for this job, because the college template everyone uses is vague. Keep it to three or four lines. Name brands, name what you can diagnose, give one number.

Most motorcycle mechanic CVs list duties: repaired motorcycles, performed maintenance, ordered parts. A service manager cannot tell an apprentice from a master technician that way. Add the engine type, the count or the result.

Group them so a service manager can find the ones in the job advert. Diagnostic skills first, because they are the hardest to hire for.

• Diagnostics: electrical fault-finding with a multimeter and scope, CAN bus and sensor testing, charging system and parasitic drain tests, fuel injection running diagnosis, compression and leak-down testing
• Engine work: top-end and bottom-end rebuilds, valve clearance and shim service, cam timing, cylinder honing, crank and bearing inspection, 2-stroke port and piston work
• Fuel systems: carburettor rebuild and vacuum sync, float height setting, injector cleaning and testing, fuel map changes, dyno tuning
• Chassis: fork seals and oil changes, shock service, preload and rebound set-up, steering head bearings, swingarm and linkage service, wheel truing and balancing
• Brakes and drivetrain: pad and disc service, hydraulic and ABS bleeding, clutch replacement, chain, sprocket, belt and final drive service
• Workshop and admin: workshop manuals and wiring diagrams, torque specs, warranty write-ups, dealer management systems, parts ordering, road testing on a full motorcycle licence
• Safety and compliance: ramp and lift use, COSHH, waste oil and hazardous waste handling, pre-MOT checks and Class 1 and 2 MOT testing if you are a registered tester

Leave off filler like 'detail-oriented' and 'passionate about bikes'. Every applicant for this job likes motorcycles. Put the engine families and the tools instead.

Workshops take on new technicians constantly, because the work is seasonal and turnover is high. If you are new, your CV needs to prove you can do the simple, high-volume work profitably from week one and that you will not damage a customer's bike.

1. 1Lead with the training: a Level 2 or Level 3 motorcycle course at college, a motorcycle apprenticeship, or a manufacturer entry programme, with the year and any brand-specific units.
2. 2Turn your training workshop time into bullets. Count the engines you stripped, the carbs you rebuilt, the tyres you fitted, the wiring repairs you made.
3. 3List your own projects honestly. A rebuilt 1998 trail bike with a documented top-end and carb job is real evidence.
4. 4Say you own tools and roughly how many pieces. A technician with no tools costs the workshop money on day one.
5. 5Name the jobs you can already do on your own: oil and filter, tyre fitting and balancing, brake pads, chain and sprockets, battery and charging tests, pre-delivery inspections.
6. 6Add your licence. Without a full motorcycle licence you cannot road test most customer bikes, and that limits which jobs you can close.

One page for most technicians, two if you have long experience and several manufacturer qualifications worth listing. Plain layout, no photo, no date of birth, no graphics, no two-column design. Big dealer groups run CVs through applicant tracking software that reads plain text, and small workshops print them.

• Mirror the advert: 'sold hours', 'efficiency', 'comeback rate', 'PDI' (pre-delivery inspection), 'Level 3', 'IMI Accreditation', 'MOT Class 1 and 2', 'V-twin', 'fuel injection', 'diagnostics', 'warranty claims'.
• If the advert names a brand, put that brand in your personal statement, not only in your job history.
• Put your licence, tool ownership and Saturday availability near the top. Saturdays matter to dealers.
• Use month and year dates and account for gaps. Winter lay-offs happen in this trade; say the workshop cut hours for winter rather than leaving a hole.
• Save as PDF unless the advert asks for a Word file, and name the file with your own name and the job title.

Read the top six lines back and ask whether a service manager could tell which bay to put you in tomorrow. If not, the brands and the diagnostic work are buried too deep.