Shepherd CV Examples & Writing Guide
A shepherd CV gets an interview when the farm manager can see the flock size you have run, your lambing percentage and losses, whether you work dogs and can work alone on the hill, and which health tasks you do without a vet on site. Below is a full sample plus bullets and skills.
Shepherd CV example (1,200-ewe hill and in-bye flock)
This sample runs a commercial ewe flock on fell grazing and in-bye land, and has moved up from hill shepherd to flock manager. The farms are invented. Notice that lambing percentage, losses and flock size sit in the first three lines, because those are the numbers farmers compare.
Elias Cordova
Shepherd / Flock Manager
Near Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria · 07700 900134 · elias.cordova.sheep@email.com · Full driving licence, tows a livestock trailer, own working dogs
Summary
Shepherd with 10 years on commercial sheep farms, currently managing a 1,200-ewe flock across fell grazing and in-bye land. Lambing at 158% reared with ewe losses under 3%. Handles all routine flock health: vaccination, worming by faecal egg count, lameness control, body condition scoring and lamb marking. Works four Border Collies and lives on site through lambing.
Experience
Flock Manager · Upland sheep farm, 1,200 ewes, fell grazing and in-bye, Cumbria
Mar 2021 – Present
- Manage a 1,200-ewe North of England Mule flock through the full year: tupping, winter feeding, indoor and outdoor lambing, summer grazing on the fell and autumn sales.
- Raised lambs reared from 141% to 158% over four seasons by tightening the tupping period to 34 days and pulling thin ewes into an early feeding group.
- Hold ewe losses under 3% and lamb losses from birth to weaning under 8%, with a written loss log by cause.
- Run a 9-paddock rotation on 260 hectares of in-bye and improved grassland, moving the flock every 4 to 6 days and keeping the residual sward above 7.5 cm.
- Give all routine treatments on site: clostridial vaccination on ewes and lambs, worming by faecal egg count rather than blanket drenching, lameness checks and footrot treatment for the whole flock twice a year, and tagging, castration and tailing at 24 to 48 hours.
- Work 4 Border Collies for gathering and sorting across in-bye and fell; losses to foxes dropped from 41 lambs to 12 a year after tightening night-time protection for young lambs.
- Coordinate 3 shearers over a 4-day clipping, rolling and packing roughly 3 tonnes of wool a year to grading standard.
Hill Shepherd · Hill farm, Scottish Borders
Apr 2018 – Mar 2021
- Shepherded 900 to 1,000 hefted ewes on open hill ground, gathering with dogs for lambing, clipping, weaning and tupping.
- Kept water supplies and mineral licks available across 6 sites, and carted water twice a week in the dry summer of 2018.
- Treated sick and injured sheep on the hill and phoned or radioed the farm for anything beyond routine, keeping hill losses at about 2.5%.
- Worked alone on the hill for days at a time, with dog care, gathers and daily counts recorded in a field notebook.
Farm Worker · Mixed beef and sheep farm, Cumbria
May 2016 – Apr 2018
- Fenced, fed and maintained water supplies on a mixed farm of 300 ewes and 180 suckler cows, including 10 km of fence repair a season.
- Ran a quad bike, a tractor with a bale handler and a livestock trailer, and hauled 40+ loads of sheep and hay a year.
Education
BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Agriculture
Land-based college, Cumbria, 2016
Certifications
- Worm control and faecal egg counting course (SCOPS principles), 2023
- Responsible use of veterinary medicines training (for Red Tractor), 2022
- Sheep dip certificate of competence, current
- Emergency First Aid at Work, valid to 2027
Skills
What a farm manager checks first
Sheep farms are small teams, often one or two people responsible for a lot of animals. The manager reading your CV is asking whether they can leave you with the flock.
- Flock size and system. 200 ewes on a lowland flock with indoor lambing is a different job from 1,000 hefted ewes on the hill. Say the number, the breed type and whether it is hill, upland, lowland or housed.
- Production numbers. Lambing percentage reared, ewe losses, lamb losses to weaning. These are the numbers farmers use to compare each other, and most shepherd CVs leave them off entirely.
- What you can do without calling the vet. Assisted deliveries, prolapse, vaccination, drenching, foot care, mastitis checks, tube feeding lambs. Say which ones you have actually done and how often.
- Dogs and working alone. Whether you have your own working dogs, how far they are trained, and whether you can work alone on the hill for long days. Both matter more than most applicants realise.
“Give me your ewe count, your weaned lamb percentage and your death loss, and tell me if the dogs are yours. Anyone can say they love sheep. I need to know whether the flock will still be alive and counted when I get back on Sunday.”
Shepherd CV personal statement examples
Three lines. Flock size, system, production numbers, and one thing that makes you easy to hire, such as your own dogs or a willingness to live on site through lambing.
Hill shepherd with 5 seasons on hefted hill ground and common grazing, running 900 to 1,000 ewes. Gathers with dogs, treats sheep on the hill, and keeps hill losses around 2.5%. Works two Border Collies and is used to working alone on the hill for long days.
Shepherd with 6 years on a 400-ewe lowland flock lambing indoors on an accelerated 8-month system. Handles 60 to 80 lambings a week at peak with assisted deliveries, tube feeding and fostering, and holds lamb losses to weaning under 6%. Keeps full individual records in flock management software.
Flock manager for 1,200 commercial ewes across fell grazing and in-bye. Lifted lambs reared from 141% to 158% in four seasons, runs a 9-paddock rotation on 260 hectares, and coordinates the shearing gang for a 3-tonne annual clip. Works 4 Border Collies.
Shepherd on a 250-ewe grass-finished flock selling lamb direct to customers and restaurants. Runs a 21-paddock rotation with daily moves, does all worm control by faecal egg counts with no blanket drenching, and books 14 kill dates a year with a local abattoir.
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Shepherd duties written the way a farmer reads them
Farm CVs tend to be lists of verbs. Add the head count, the hectares, the frequency and the result and every line gets stronger.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Cared for sheep daily. | Managed a 1,200-ewe flock through tupping, winter feeding, lambing, summer fell grazing and autumn sales. |
| Helped with lambing. | Worked 60 to 80 lambings a week at peak, including assisted deliveries, fostering orphans and tube feeding weak lambs; lamb losses to weaning held under 8%. |
| Moved sheep to different fields. | Ran a 9-paddock rotation on 260 hectares of in-bye, moving every 4 to 6 days and leaving a residual sward above 7.5 cm. |
| Gave medicine and vaccinations. | Vaccinated the whole flock against clostridial diseases on schedule and wormed by faecal egg count instead of blanket treatment, cutting wormer use by roughly half. |
| Kept records. | Kept EID tag and movement records, individual ewe production records and a written loss log by cause for a 1,200-ewe flock. |
| Worked with dogs. | Trained and worked 4 Border Collies for gathering and sorting, and tightened night-time protection for young lambs; losses to foxes fell from 41 lambs to 12 a year. |
| Helped at shearing. | Coordinated 3 shearers over a 4-day clipping, ran the wool table and packed a 3-tonne clip prepared to grade. |
| Fixed fences. | Built and repaired 10 km of fence a season across electric, stock netting and barbed wire, including a solar energiser system on the summer grazing. |
Flock health and grazing skills worth listing
The health section is where an experienced shepherd stands out from a general farm hand. Be specific about what you do routinely.
- Lambing: scanning support, individual pens, assisted deliveries, prolapse management, colostrum and tube feeding, fostering orphans, tailing and castration at the right age, ear tagging.
- Health: faecal egg counts and targeted worming, clostridial vaccination scheduling, foot care and footrot treatment, body condition scoring, mastitis and udder checks, quarantine of bought-in stock.
- Grazing: paddock layout, stocking rate, residual sward height, mob size, water supplies, mineral lick placement, awareness of poisonous plants such as ragwort and bracken.
- Records: EID tags, flock register and movement reports, individual ewe records, loss log by cause, medicine book with withdrawal periods.
- Dogs: sheepdog commands and gathering, sorting in handling pens, shedding and penning, bringing on young dogs with the flock.
- Equipment: quad bike and side-by-side, tractor with loader or bale handler, livestock trailer, feeding, handling system setup, fencing tools and electric fence testing.
Certificates, records and what employers check
Shepherding is not a licensed occupation in the UK. A handful of courses, certificates and records do come up in hiring.
- Worm control training. Courses run by vets, animal medicine advisers and land-based colleges teach you to use faecal egg counts and treat only the sheep that need it, in line with SCOPS guidance. Widely recognised and cheap to get.
- Responsible use of medicines training. Red Tractor farms look for it, and it signals you understand withdrawal periods, injection sites and the medicine book.
- Sheep identification and movements. Sheep in the UK must carry official tags (EID for most), and moves must be reported to the livestock movement service for your part of the UK. Say that you keep the flock register and movement records; do not claim a certification that does not exist.
- Sheep dip certificate. You need a certificate of competence to buy and use sheep dip. Say which units you hold and the year.
- Driving licence and towing. Say plainly whether you can tow and reverse a livestock trailer. For longer journeys you may also need an animal transport certificate of competence, so say if you hold one.
- Wool handling or shearing training. If you have done a shearing course or worked a wool table, name the course and the year.
Getting a first sheep job with no experience
Sheep farms take on seasonal help every spring for lambing and every summer for shearing and gathering. Reliability, physical stamina and a willingness to be somewhere with no phone signal count for more than a CV.
- 1Target the seasonal openings: lambing help from January to April depending on the region, shearing gang help, fencing and silage or haymaking in summer.
- 2Say plainly what you will accept: living on site, night shifts during lambing, long days alone on the hill, no days off during peak. These lines get read.
- 3Use any animal experience honestly, including Young Farmers, showing at agricultural shows, a riding stables job, a dairy, a boarding kennel or a veterinary practice.
- 4Show the physical and mechanical side: fencing, tractor work, chainsaw, drainage, welding, quad bike. Farm jobs are half livestock and half maintenance.
- 5Take a lambing or worm control course at a land-based college if there is one near you. It is a small thing that shows you are serious about sheep specifically.
- 6Keep it to one page and include a phone number that works, plus a note about how quickly you can start.
Farm worker seeking a lambing-season shepherd position. Two years on a 90-cow dairy handling milking, calving assistance and feeding on a 5am to 3pm shift, plus four years in Young Farmers showing lambs at county shows. Comfortable living on site, working nights through lambing, and running a quad bike and tractor. Available January to May.
Construction labourer of 6 years moving into farm work. Built and repaired fencing, ran a skid steer and tractor, and worked outdoors all year round in Cumbrian weather. Kept a small flock of 12 ewes for three years, doing own lambing, vaccination and foot care. Completed a worm control course in 2026. Looking for full-time work on a commercial flock.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write a shepherd CV?
Put flock size, system and production numbers in the first three lines: ewes managed, lambing percentage reared, losses. Then give each farm five or six bullets with counts, hectares and frequencies. List the health tasks you perform routinely, your dog handling, and any worm control or medicines training. One page is enough.
What numbers should a shepherd put on a CV?
Ewe count, lambing percentage reared, ewe and lamb losses, hectares and paddock count, days between moves, lambings handled per week at peak, wool clip weight, losses to foxes before and after a change you made, and kilometres of fence built. These are the figures farmers use to judge each other.
What skills does a shepherd need?
Lambing including assisted deliveries and fostering, flock health such as vaccination, faecal egg counts, foot care and body condition scoring, rotational grazing, working sheepdog handling, fencing and water supplies, and equipment operation from quad bike to livestock trailer.
Do you need a qualification to be a shepherd in the UK?
No licence is required. Worm control training and responsible use of medicines training are useful and inexpensive, and land-based colleges run lambing and quad bike courses. You do need a certificate of competence to buy and use sheep dip, so check what you hold before claiming it.
How do I get a shepherd job with no experience?
Apply for seasonal lambing help, shearing gang work or general farm hand roles and say clearly that you will live on site, work nights and take no days off during peak. Use Young Farmers, dairy, kennel or veterinary experience, and show fencing, tractor and outdoor work. Many shepherds start exactly this way.
Should I mention my own working dogs on the CV?
Yes, in the first three lines. A shepherd who arrives with a trained Border Collie is worth more to a farm than one who does not, and a young dog you are bringing on is worth naming too. Say the breed, how many, and what work they do.
What is the difference between a hill shepherd and a shepherd job advert?
In practice, "hill shepherd" usually means hefted hill or fell ground, gathering with dogs over large areas and often working alone, while "shepherd" or "flock manager" more often means a lowland or upland flock with indoor lambing and rotational grazing. Use whichever word the advert uses and describe the system you have worked.
How long should a livestock CV be?
One page. Farm managers read quickly and care about head counts and results, not job descriptions. Give the last two or three farms full detail and put anything older into one line each.
Ready to write yours?
The builder suggests a summary from your own experience, then checks it against the job posting.
How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.