Pipefitter CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a time-served pipefitter with 13 years in the trade, from an engineering construction apprenticeship through commercial mechanical work and into industrial process pipework and shutdowns. Names, contractors and colleges are invented. Put your own systems, materials, test results and cards in.

Industrial hiring runs on speed. A shutdown coordinator may be filling forty fitter slots in a week. They are scanning for five things.

• Cards and passports. A CCNSG Safety Passport for refinery, chemical, power and process sites. A CSCS card for construction sites. Client inductions, plus confined space, working at height and RPE face-fit dates. If you have to go and get a card after the offer, you start two weeks late.
• Weld and test credentials. Which position and process you are coded in, on what material, and whether it is current. A 6G stainless code is a different candidate from a 2G carbon one, and everyone in this trade knows the difference.
• Systems and materials. Process pipework, steam and condensate, chilled and heating water, compressed air, medical gas, hydraulic, hygienic stainless for pharma and food. Then the materials and pipe sizes. "DN15 to DN600 carbon, 304/316 stainless and P11 chrome-moly" tells a foreman exactly where to put you.
• Numbers that prove quality. Radiographic first-pass rate, hydro first-time pass, tie-ins completed, spools per week, metres installed. Most fitters never put these on paper, and the ones who do stand out immediately.
• Travel and availability. Working away with lodge or subsistence, shutdown season, nights, 6x10s or 7x12s. Say what you will do. It is often the deciding line.

“Give me your weld ticket position and material, your CCNSG passport, and whether you travel. Then one line about your x-ray pass rate. Most CVs I see are a list of plants with no dates and no numbers, and I cannot tell a ten-year fitter from a second-year helper.”

Three or four lines at the top. Years in the trade, what you fit, one quality number, then your cards and whether you work away.

• Drawings and setting out: isometric drawings, P&IDs, spool sheets, orthographic plans, take-offs, offsets and rolling offsets, take-off calculations, using a level, protractor and wrap-around
• Joining methods: butt weld and socket weld fit-up, bevel prep, tacking, screwed pipe on a Ridgid 300, grooved couplings, brazed copper with nitrogen purge, HDPE fusion, flanged joint make-up to bolt tightening procedure
• Materials: carbon steel, 304 and 316 stainless, chrome-moly, copper, PVC and ABS, HDPE, and the pipe size and schedule range you have handled
• Systems: process pipework, steam and condensate, chilled and heating water, compressed air, instrument air, hydraulic, hygienic stainless, medical gas
• Testing and commissioning: hydrostatic and pneumatic testing, test packs, snagging lists, walkdowns with QC
• Tools and equipment: gas and plasma cutting, band saw, bevelling machine, chain block, lever hoist, MEWP, forklift, torque wrench, alignment tools
• Slinging: sling selection, load calculation, hand signals, tag lines, working with a crane operator
• Safety: RAMS, isolations and lock-off, hot work permits, confined space entry, working at height, RPE, gas monitoring

Do not pad this section with words like "teamwork". In this trade, teamwork is proved by "ran a four-fitter crew" and safety is proved by a reportable injury count. Everything that matters here has a number or a card attached.

This is the section that gets you through the site gate. Put a date or an expiry on every line and keep the names exact.

• Qualification: your NVQ Level 3 (for example in Mechanical Engineering Construction, pipefitting) and the apprenticeship you completed, with the year. ECITB-supported apprenticeships are well known to industrial contractors.
• Weld codes: state the standard, position, process and material, for example "BS EN ISO 9606-1 and ASME Section IX, 6G, TIG root and MMA fill, carbon steel and 316 stainless". Say whether it is current and who holds the paperwork, since codes are usually kept by the employer.
• ECITB technical training: Mechanical Joint Integrity (MJI) for bolted connections, plus any ECITB technical tests your contractor uses. These transfer between contractors and are worth naming.
• CCNSG Safety Passport: the standard safety passport for engineering construction sites such as refineries, chemical plants and power stations. Give the expiry year; do not put the card number on your CV.
• CSCS card for construction sites, plus client site inductions and permit-to-work training.
• Task-specific training with dates: confined space (low, medium or high risk), working at height, RPE face-fit, H2S awareness, isolations, hot work, MEWP and forklift operation.
• Slinging and signalling, such as a CPCS or NPORS slinger/signaller card, if you hold it.
• Medical gas pipeline systems (MGPS) training to HTM 02-01 if you do hospital work. Healthcare clients expect trained installers, and it is a real differentiator on hospital jobs.
• Pressure systems: much of the plant you work on falls under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 (PSSR), so tests follow written procedures and are inspected. Mention the test packs you have completed. There is no separate pipefitting licence in the UK, but work on gas installations in homes and commercial buildings (for example natural gas supply pipework) needs Gas Safe registration.

There are two honest routes in: an engineering construction apprenticeship with a contractor, often ECITB-supported, or a fitter's mate job with a contractor that trains its own fitters and puts you through an NVQ on site. Either way, the CV is short and it is about attitude, attendance and hands.

1. 1Put hours at the top if you are already on an apprenticeship: site hours plus college hours, and which year you are in.
2. 2List every safety card you hold, even a CSCS Green card or a CCNSG passport. It shows you took a step before anyone asked.
3. 3Name the tools you can already use: tape and setting out, gas cutting, grinder, band saw, threader, impact driver, lever hoist. Be honest about level.
4. 4Turn other physical work into evidence: welding course projects, farm and plant maintenance, motor vehicle or diesel work, Forces engineering experience, warehouse and slinging.
5. 5State your transport, your willingness to work away and your shift availability. Shutdown work is nights, weekends and away from home.
6. 6Say you have your own hand tools and safety boots. It sounds small; it reads as serious.
7. 7Keep it to one page and expect drug and alcohol testing and right-to-work checks on nearly every industrial site.

• One page, two at most if you have fifteen-plus years and supervisory experience. Contractors read fast and often on a phone.
• Order: name and location with a working-away note, contact line with cards, personal statement, cards and tickets, experience, skills, education and apprenticeship.
• Put dates on every job, including short shutdown stints. A list of plants with no dates is the single most common problem on pipefitter CVs and it reads as hiding something.
• Group short shutdown work under the contractor or agency that placed you, with the sites and durations as bullets underneath.
• PDF, single column, no graphics or columns. Agencies use applicant systems too, and many of them upload your file into a scheduling database.
• Mirror the advert: "process pipework", "tie-ins", "shutdown", "turnaround", "iso", "spool fabrication", "hydro test", "6G", "CCNSG". Use their exact words.
• Keep a phone number you answer. Shutdown call-outs move fast, and the second name on the list gets called within the hour. Some UK adverts say pipe fitter, pipework fitter or industrial plumber for the same trade.