Transport Planner (Transport Dispatcher) CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a planner with about ten years in full-load and pallet network freight. The name, hauliers and customers are invented. Keep the structure and swap in your own load counts, driver counts, systems and dates.

Planning roles are usually filled by a transport manager or depot manager who has an empty seat on a live board. They skim for four things.

• Board size. How many drivers and how many loads a day you actually carried. "38 drivers, 55 to 70 loads a day" tells them whether you can hold their board on day one.
• Service numbers. On-time collection and on-time delivery percentages. If you do not know yours, ask your transport manager for the customer scorecard.
• Systems by name. Mandata, Descartes, Microlise, Webfleet, Samsara, Paragon, Haulage Exchange, Timocom. A generic "transport software" line gets skipped.
• Drivers' hours literacy. Do you plan trips around the 9-hour daily driving limit (10 hours twice a week), the 45-minute break after 4.5 hours, daily and weekly rest, the 56-hour weekly and 90-hour fortnightly limits, and Working Time? Planners who put drivers over the line cost the operator fines and freight.

“Tell me how many trucks you dispatched, your on-time percentage, and what TMS you sat in all day. If a CV says "coordinated transportation activities" and nothing else, I assume the person answered phones.”

Use a personal statement if you have planned before. Use a career objective if you are coming from driving, customer service or the warehouse. Three lines, no more, and put a number in the first sentence.

Do not copy the advert's duty list. Write what you did, with a count, a rate or a pound figure attached. Here are bullets by task. Change the numbers to your own.

Ten to fourteen skills, systems first. A transport manager reads the software lines and the compliance lines, then moves on.

Systems and platforms (name the ones you have actually used):

• Transport management and routing systems: Mandata, Descartes, Microlise, Paragon, Transporeon
• Telematics and tachograph analysis: Microlise, Webfleet, Samsara, Geotab, tachograph analysis software
• Freight exchanges: Haulage Exchange, Courier Exchange, Timocom
• Visibility and tracking: project44, customer tracking portals
• Excel or Google Sheets for on-time reports, driver timesheets and lane analysis
• EDI orders and customer booking-in portals (name the retailer or distribution centre booking systems you used)

Regulatory and operational knowledge:

• GB and EU drivers' hours rules: 9-hour daily driving (10 hours twice a week), 45-minute break after 4.5 hours, daily and weekly rest, 56-hour weekly and 90-hour fortnightly limits, split and reduced rest
• Road transport Working Time rules, and how DVSA enforcement and the operator's OCRS score are affected by planning decisions
• Load restraint and weight limits, including the 44-tonne gross limit for a six-axle artic and axle weights
• ADR marking and paperwork if your fleet carries dangerous goods
• Fridge set points, continuous versus start-stop running, and pre-cool requirements
• Waiting time, overnight, failed collection and extra drop charges, and how to document them

The people side, which is half the job:

• Calm phone and radio manner under pressure (breakdowns, accidents, angry goods-in teams)
• Rate negotiation with hauliers, freight agents and customer transport desks
• Driver relations: home time, pay questions, load refusals
• Working nights, weekends and an on-call rota
• Polish, Romanian or another second language if drivers on the board speak it

There is no licence to be a transport planner in the UK. Anyone selling you a "dispatcher licence" is selling a course, not a credential. What employers do recognise:

• The Transport Manager CPC (national or international), which you need to be the named transport manager on an operator's licence and which many planners take as their next step. CILT qualifications and ASCM CLTD or CSCP are also real, exam-based and worth listing.
• Freight forwarding training, such as BIFA courses, if you also arrange freight as an agent.
• ADR dangerous goods training, which your employer provides if you plan dangerous goods loads and which has to be refreshed periodically.
• A port pass, if you plan work into ports. Each port runs its own access scheme, so name the port and say the pass is current.
• A category C or C+E licence with Driver CPC, if you hold one. Planners who have driven get read differently, so list it even though the seat does not require it.
• A foundation degree or course in logistics helps for a first office job, but most adverts ask for GCSEs plus experience.

"How to become a transport planner with no experience" is a common search, so plenty of people are in your position. Small hauliers hire planners off the phones, the warehouse or the driver's seat. Your CV has to prove you can hold a phone conversation under pressure, keep 40 moving things straight, and learn a system.

1. 1Put "Transport Planner" or the advert's exact title under your name, not your old job title.
2. 2Write a three-line career objective naming the transferable proof: calls per day, accounts handled, shifts covered, or your driving record if you have driven.
3. 3Rewrite past jobs as planning-shaped work. Customer service becomes call volume and resolution rate. Warehouse becomes trailer schedules and booking-in slots. Driving becomes miles, safety record and drivers' hours knowledge.
4. 4Add a short line showing you studied the rules: GB drivers' hours, Working Time, tachograph basics and how a freight exchange works. Name what you read or the course you took, and do not overstate it.
5. 5List any system you can already use: Excel, a CRM, a scheduling tool, Google Maps route planning.
6. 6Say plainly that you can work nights, weekends and on-call. Transport offices run around the clock and availability is a real tiebreaker.
7. 7One page, PDF, plain layout, no photo.

• One page for up to ten years of planning. Two pages only if you have run several depots or a fleet over 100 vehicles.
• Order: header with the target title, personal statement, skills and systems, experience, qualifications, education. Put systems high; that is the screening question.
• Single column, plain headings, no photo, no icons. Transport offices often print CVs.
• Month and year on every job. Agency planning work is common; label it "via employment agency" with the agency name so short stints read as one assignment.
• Add an availability line: "Available for nights, weekends and on-call rota." Planning boards run around the clock and managers look for this.
• PDF unless the application asks for Word. Name the file Firstname-Lastname-Transport-Planner-CV.pdf.
• Applying in the US: the job is usually called truck or transportation dispatcher and you send a resume, not a CV. The planning skills carry over, but swap the GB drivers' hours references for the US Hours of Service rules.

Words worth mirroring from the advert when they are true of you: transport planning, traffic office, load planning, route optimisation, TMS, telematics, tachograph, drivers' hours, Working Time, operator licence compliance, on-time delivery, empty running, backloads, driver retention, rate confirmation, waiting time, pallet network, full loads, fridge, curtainsider, trunking, tramping, multi-drop, booking-in slots, out-of-hours on-call.