Tanker Driver CV Examples & Writing Guide

A one-page CV for a fuel tanker driver with nine years of HGV driving, five of them on tankers. Name and employers are invented. The licence and ADR sit in the header, and every job gives the product, the equipment, the run type and a safety number.

Tanker work pays more than general haulage because it is harder and the consequences of a mistake are bigger. Recruiters screen hard on four things.

• Licence and ADR. Category C+E, and an ADR certificate covering tanks and the classes you carry (class 3 for petrol and diesel). For fuel terminals, add your Petroleum Driver Passport if you hold one, and say all of them are current.
• Driving record and checks. A clean licence, a current DQC and Group 2 medical, no failed drug or alcohol tests, and a stable work history. Most tanker hauliers want 1 to 2 years of C+E experience before they put you in a tanker.
• What you hauled and how. Fuel at a terminal is different from chemicals in a stainless tanker, LPG, bitumen or raw milk collected from farms. Say the product, the tank type, the compartments and the loading method.
• Safety record with numbers. Accident-free miles, clean roadside checks, spill-free loads, drivers' hours infringements, and any incident you were involved in and what you learned. Tanker hauliers live and die on their DVSA compliance scores (OCRS).

“First thing I look for is ADR with tanks and a clean licence. Then I want to see tank time, because surge on a half-empty trailer will teach a new driver a lesson they do not forget. Miles without a blameworthy accident and clean roadside checks tell me more than any list of duties.”

Get the names right. Recruiters read hundreds of driver CVs and a wrong ADR class or licence category stands out.

• Required for most tanker jobs: C+E licence, Driver CPC, digital tachograph card, a Group 2 medical, a driving record your haulier's insurer will accept, and the ability to pass drug and alcohol testing.
• Required for fuel, chemical and gas haulage: an ADR certificate covering tanks and the classes you carry, renewed every five years with a refresher course and exams.
• Needed for fuel terminal access: a Petroleum Driver Passport. Many fuel hauliers ask for it up front or put new drivers through it.
• Common extras: a passport for European work, site safety passports for chemical and petrochemical plants, forklift or pump training for some food-grade and chemical hauliers.
• Never claim a qualification you do not hold. Hauliers check your licence with the DVLA and ask to see your ADR certificate and DQC before the interview.

Two or three lines: licence and ADR, years and product hauled, the run type, one safety number. Use a career objective if you are moving into tanker work from another kind of driving.

Driving CVs fill up with duties every HGV driver shares. What a tanker recruiter wants is the product, the equipment, the volume and the safety record.

Ten to fourteen skills, weighted to the product you haul. A fuel haulier and a food-grade haulier want to read two different lists.

• Tank work: loading and discharge procedures for your product, earthing and bonding, overfill protection, vapour recovery, hoses and couplings, pumps and meters, tank dipping, sampling, seals and wash-bay procedures.
• Driving a liquid load: surge and slosh control, braking distance with a part load, rollover awareness on slip roads and roundabouts, turning wide on tight forecourts, night and winter driving.
• Regulations: drivers' hours and digital tachograph, ADR orange plates and labels, transport documents and instructions in writing, load security, weight limits and axle weights, daily walk-round checks.
• Safety and response: spill kit deployment and containment, fire extinguisher use, personal protective equipment, H2S awareness for some chemical and waste work, incident and near-miss reporting.
• Equipment and systems: tractor units you have driven, automatic and manual gearboxes, tachograph and telematics systems, delivery apps and terminal card systems, communication with the planning office.
• The parts recruiters value quietly: attendance, working nights and weekends, staying polite with a forecourt manager at 2am, and calling the planners before a problem becomes an incident.

Almost nobody starts in a tanker. Most hauliers want one to two years of C+E driving first, then put you through their own tanker training. So the CV for this move is a safe-driving CV with the ADR work already started.

1. 1Header: licence categories, the ADR modules you hold and any you are booked on, your licence record, DQC expiry, and your availability for nights and weekends.
2. 2Career objective in two lines: the tanker job you want, your years on C+E and miles, and your ADR status. Say plainly that you are looking to move into tanker work.
3. 3Work history from your driving jobs with the numbers that matter: miles per week, loads delivered, on-time rate, blameworthy accidents, roadside checks, drivers' hours infringements. Zeroes count.
4. 4If you have no HGV experience at all, list your licence training and Driver CPC initial qualification, your ADR modules, and any related work: farm or fuel delivery, forklift, warehouse, military driving, or plant.
5. 5Add safety training you have done: defensive driving courses, ADR, first aid. Hauliers like drivers who take training seriously because insurance costs them money.

• One page. Driver recruiters process a lot of applications and most of the decision is made on the header block.
• Order: name, credentials line, personal statement, work history newest first, skills, qualifications and training, education. Account for gaps in employment; hauliers and their insurers check your work history and references, so leaving holes only creates questions.
• Plain single column, standard font. UK conventions: no photo, no date of birth. Most hauliers and driver agencies use their own application system plus a CV upload, and many recruiters read on a phone.
• Text-based PDF: Firstname-Lastname-ADR-Tanker-Driver.pdf.
• Mirror the advert: "C+E", "Class 1", "ADR tanks", "class 3", "Petroleum Driver Passport", "PDP", "Driver CPC", "digital tachograph", "clean licence", "bottom loading", "bulk liquids", "fuel", "nights", "home daily".
• In the US the same job is advertised as a CDL-A tanker driver with tanker and hazmat endorsements. If your experience comes from there, describe it in UK terms, mention the US wording once and say which UK licence and ADR certificate you now hold.

Paste the advert into the cvplex ATS checker with your draft. It flags licences and certificates the haulier asked for that your CV never mentions, and bullets with no mileage, load count or safety figure.