Scaffolder CV Examples & Writing Guide

Here is a full CV for an advanced scaffolder with nine years on the tools. The name and employers are made up. Read the top third the way a scaffolding supervisor does: systems built, height, cards and tickets, site type.

Scaffold hiring is fast, especially before a shutdown. The person reading your CV is often filling 20 to 60 places in a week. They scan for four things.

• Which systems you can build. Tube and fitting, system scaffold and suspended or cantilever work are different skill sets. Say all of them if you have them, and name the systems you have used (Layher, Haki, Cuplock).
• What kind of site. Refinery and petrochemical, power station, docks, commercial high-rise and housing are different worlds. A refinery supervisor wants someone who has worked under permits to work and in confined spaces, not someone who has only done house extensions.
• Card level and dates. CISRS Labourer, Trainee, Scaffolder or Advanced Scaffolder, plus inspection courses, SSSTS, IPAF and site passports. Expired cards read as no card.
• Safety record and reliability. Hours worked without a lost-time injury, audit results, attendance on shutdowns. Falls from height and dropped objects are among the most serious risks on any site, so a clean record is worth more than a long duty list.

“I hire fifty scaffold hands for a turnaround in about ten days. If I cannot see your systems, your safety card and whether you have been inside a live unit in the first six lines, your CV goes in the maybe pile and the maybe pile rarely gets read twice.”

In the UK the scaffolding card scheme is CISRS (the Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme), which most contractors and main contractors expect to see. Scaffolding work comes under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and the trade works to NASC guidance such as TG20 for tube and fitting and SG4 for preventing falls. List what you actually hold, with the level and year, and never write a card you have not earned. Gate checks catch it on day one.

• CISRS card level. The usual route runs from Labourer to Trainee (after the Part 1 course), then Scaffolder (Part 2, a skills test and an NVQ Level 2) and Advanced Scaffolder, with supervisor cards above that. Check the current requirements with CISRS and show your level and expiry date.
• Scaffold inspection. A scaffold must be inspected by a competent person before first use, at least every 7 days and after anything that could affect it, such as high winds. CISRS basic and advanced scaffold inspection courses are the usual proof that you can inspect and tag.
• NASC guidance. Say that you build to TG20 compliance sheets for tube and fitting (anything outside them needs a design) and that you work to SG4 for fall prevention. Supervisors look for both words.
• Apprenticeship or NVQ. Many scaffolders train through a scaffolding apprenticeship or on-site NVQ assessment. Put the NVQ level and the year you finished.
• Site access: a CCNSG Safety Passport for petrochemical and engineering construction sites, plus site inductions and permit-to-work training for the plants you have worked at.
• Add-ons that get you picked first: SSSTS for chargehands and supervisors, IPAF, a CPCS or NPORS slinger/signaller card, telehandler, confined space, PASMA for mobile towers, and the date of your last RPE face-fit test.

Use a personal statement if you have worked on scaffolding before. Use a career objective only if you are switching from another trade or starting out. Either way, four lines maximum, with systems, height, cards and site type in it.

Copying a job description onto your CV is the most common mistake in this trade. Everyone erects and strikes scaffold. Say what type, how much, how high and what happened as a result.

Keep the skills section to the things a scaffolding supervisor would tick off on a hiring sheet. Split it so the systems and the safety training are easy to find.

• Scaffold systems: tube and fitting, system scaffold (Layher Allround, Haki, Cuplock, Kwikstage), mobile towers, independent and birdcage scaffolds, cantilever, hanging and needle scaffolds, temporary roofs, loading bays, pavement gantries.
• Suspended access: suspended scaffolds and cradle access, mast climbing work platforms, outrigger beams, tie-backs and kentledge.
• Safety and inspection: Scafftag and handover certificates, pre-use checks, 7-day inspections, load classes, board inspection and rejection, guardrails, toe boards, brick guards, debris netting and sheeting, dropped object prevention.
• Fall prevention and rigging: SG4 methods, advance guardrail systems, full body harness, shock-absorbing lanyards, inertia reels, anchor selection, knots, gin wheel, chain hoists, hand signals.
• Site skills: permits to work, hot work, confined space entry, isolation awareness, RPE use, RAMS and toolbox talks, isometric and drawing reading, tape and level setting out.
• Equipment: telehandler and forklift, scissor and boom MEWPs, scaffold spanner and podger, impact gun, tube cutter, laser level.
• Soft skills that matter here: turning up for a 6 am gate start, working nights and 12-hour shutdown shifts, taking direction on a radio, and speaking up when a tie is missing.

Skip generic lines like team player or hard working. Every applicant writes them, and none of them tell a supervisor whether you can lay out a birdcage around a heat exchanger.

Most scaffolders start as a labourer passing material. You do not need scaffolding hours to get that first job, but you do need to look safe, fit and ready for a 6 am start.

1. 1Pass the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test first. It is the starting point for a CSCS or CISRS Labourer card, it costs little, and it removes the main reason a contractor says no.
2. 2Add whatever else you can get cheaply: Emergency First Aid at Work, a full driving licence and, for refinery or petrochemical work, a CCNSG Safety Passport, which many industrial sites ask for.
3. 3Put a short career objective at the top saying you want a scaffolding labourer or trainee place, plus the physical facts: you can carry 25 to 35 kg repeatedly, work at height and pass a drug and alcohol test.
4. 4Turn any physical job into scaffold-adjacent experience. Warehouse, landscaping, removals, farm work, the armed forces and roofing all show lifting, heights, tools and turning up.
5. 5List the courses on your CV, not just the cards in your wallet, and bring copies to the interview.
6. 6One page. No photo, no date of birth, no references section.

One page if you have under ten years. Two pages only if you have run gangs on several large shutdowns and need the project list. Plain layout, one column, no photo, no graphics, no skill bars. Save as PDF unless the advert asks for Word.

• Add a short project or shutdown list if you do turnaround work: site type, dates, gang size, scope. Supervisors read it like a track record.
• Write dates as month and year, and explain gaps. Time off between shutdowns is normal in this trade, so write "between shutdown contracts" rather than leaving a hole.
• Mirror the exact phrases from the advert: scaffolder, advanced scaffolder, CISRS, tube and fitting, system scaffold, TG20, SG4, scaffold inspection, turnaround, shutdown, confined space, permit to work, CCNSG, boards, ties, load class.
• Spell out an abbreviation the first time, then use the short form: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Risk Assessments and Method Statements (RAMS).
• Do not include a photo, your age, your date of birth or your National Insurance number. UK employers do not expect them; the NI number goes on the starter form after an offer.
• Keep the file name simple: marcus-delgado-scaffolder-cv.pdf.

In the US the same trade is usually called a scaffold erector, and contractors there want a one-page resume with OSHA training cards. For UK jobs, keep the CV conventions on this page and put your CISRS card level in the top third.