Vineyard Worker CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a vineyard worker with about ten seasons who now leads a team and helps in the winery at harvest. The name and estates are invented. Keep the structure and change the block sizes, varieties, rates and equipment to yours.

Hiring is done by a vineyard manager or a labour provider, often days before a task window opens. They want to know which parts of the year you can cover.

• Can you prune to standard? Pruning is the skilled task in the vineyard and it decides next season's crop. Give your system (cane on Guyot, spur on cordon, or both), your daily count and any quality audit result.
• How much of the year can you work? A worker who can prune in winter, do canopy work in summer and pick at harvest is worth more than a harvest-only picker. Say which months you are available.
• Do you drive equipment? Narrow vineyard tractor, sprayer, mower, ATV, forklift. Tractor drivers are consistently in short supply on vineyards and it changes your pay.
• Are you certified to spray? In the UK anyone applying professional pesticides needs a certificate of competence, usually City & Guilds NPTC PA1 plus the unit for the equipment (PA6 for knapsack and hand-held sprayers, a further unit for tractor-mounted sprayers). Holding them makes you far more useful.
• Have you worked in the winery at harvest? Vineyard workers who can move to the press house for three weeks solve a real staffing problem for small wineries.

“Pruning count and pruning style, then whether you can drive a tractor and whether you hold a spray ticket. If you can do winter and summer work, not just harvest, put that at the top, because those are the people I try hardest to keep.”

Two or three lines. Hectares and varieties, pruning rate, equipment, availability. Use a career objective only for a first season.

Vineyard work runs on a calendar, and a CV organised that way proves you know the year. Use the tasks you have actually done and put your own counts in.

Eight to twelve lines. Skilled vineyard tasks first, equipment second, the practical facts last.

• Pruning: name the systems you know (cane on single or double Guyot, the most common system in UK vineyards, or spur on cordon) and the trellis type (usually VSP).
• Hand tools: secateurs, loppers, battery-powered secateurs, pruning saw, and how you maintain and sanitise them between vines.
• Canopy work: de-budding, shoot thinning, tucking in and shoot positioning, leaf stripping, trimming, bunch thinning.
• Trellis and infrastructure: posts, wire, end posts and anchors, bird netting, rabbit and deer fencing.
• Irrigation (mainly young vines): drip line installation, dripper replacement, filter cleaning, pressure checks.
• Harvest: hand picking into crates, field sorting, crate and bin handling, forklift loading, machine harvest support.
• Sampling: refractometer (Brix) readings, berry sampling protocols, block record keeping.
• Equipment: narrow vineyard tractor, ATV, sprayer, mower, cultivator, forklift.
• Spray work: COSHH, safe handling and storage, re-entry times, spray records, and the pesticide certificates you hold (PA1, PA6 and any sprayer unit).
• Vine health awareness: recognising trunk disease, mildew and botrytis pressure, frost damage and water stress.
• Winery work at harvest if you have it, listed by task rather than as "winery experience".
• Practical facts: full-season availability, own transport, early starts, working in cold and wet weather, carrying full picking crates all day.

Nothing is legally required to work vines, except where pesticides are involved. A few certificates genuinely change what you are worth to a vineyard.

• Pesticide application certificates, if you mix, load or apply. Professional users in the UK need a certificate of competence: City & Guilds NPTC PA1 (the foundation module) plus the unit for the equipment you use, such as PA6 for knapsack and hand-held sprayers. Tractor-mounted sprayers need a separate unit, so name each one exactly.
• COSHH and manual handling training. Employers have to control your exposure to hazardous substances and train you for the lifting involved, so give the year of your last refresher.
• ATV (quad bike) and tractor driving courses, for example from Lantra or City & Guilds NPTC. Write the provider and the year.
• Forklift or telehandler certificate from an accredited trainer, tied to the machine type. Harvest loading makes this useful.
• Viticulture courses from a land-based college or university, part-time or short courses. Even three completed modules is a real signal of intent for a team leader path. A WSET wine qualification is optional but helps if you want to move into the winery or cellar door.
• Sustainability scheme experience is worth naming if the estate is certified, since audits create paperwork the team has to support. Say which scheme the vineyard was in, for example Sustainable Wines of Great Britain.
• A full UK driving licence and clean record, especially if you move team vehicles or tow equipment on public roads.
• Emergency First Aid at Work (renew every three years), useful on remote hillside blocks and valued in a team leader.

Vineyards take on first-season workers every year, especially at harvest and for summer canopy work. Pruning is the skilled entry point and most estates will train you to their own standard if you turn up and learn fast.

1. 1Put "Vineyard Worker" or the advert's title under your name, not your old job title.
2. 2Write a two-line career objective covering the physical reality: cold winter mornings, rain, summer heat, 10-hour days, repeated bending, and how many months you can work.
3. 3Turn any outdoor or hand-tool job into bullets with numbers: landscaping, orchard work, construction, forestry, farm work, gardening.
4. 4Mention any pruning experience at all, even in orchards, soft fruit or ornamentals. The idea that a cut now decides next year's growth transfers directly.
5. 5Say what equipment you can already use: tractor, mower, chainsaw, ATV, forklift, or a full driving licence and clean record.
6. 6Say that you are ready to complete COSHH and manual handling training on hire, and interested in pesticide certificates later.
7. 7Apply in November and December for winter pruning and in July and August for harvest teams (picking usually runs from mid-September into October), and expect to talk to a labour provider as often as to the estate.
8. 8One page, plain layout, no photo, and a printed copy in hand if you apply in person.

• One page. This CV is read in a farm office or on a phone in a tractor cab.
• Order: header with target title, personal statement or career objective, skills, experience, certificates and training, education. Skills go high because the task list is the screening question.
• Seasonal work is the norm and needs no apology. Label roles with their months, for example "Aug 2015 – Nov 2016 (seasonal)", so repeat seasons read as one continuous history.
• If you have worked through a vineyard management company or a labour provider, name both the provider and the vineyards, because managers recognise both.
• Name varieties and hectares. It tells a manager the scale and style of operation you are used to (for example sparkling wine estates picking early for acidity).
• UK conventions: no photo, no date of birth, no marital status. One line confirming your right to work in the UK is enough.
• List your languages. Many vineyard teams work in more than one language, and a team leader who can brief seasonal workers in their own language is valuable. Keep the CV itself single column and plain.
• PDF or a clean printed page, named Firstname-Lastname-Vineyard-CV.pdf.
• US, Australian and New Zealand vineyards: the roles are often advertised as vineyard worker or vineyard hand, and in the US you send a resume. The task list is the same; the spray credentials are national and different.

Words worth mirroring from the advert when they are true: pruning, Guyot, cane, spur, cordon, VSP trellis, tying down, de-budding, shoot thinning, leaf stripping, trimming, bunch thinning, canopy management, trellis repair, drip irrigation, frost protection, Brix, hand harvest, crates, press house, tractor driver, spray records, PA1, PA6, seasonal, team leader.