Water Treatment Operator (Process Technician) CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for an operator who works at a water company's surface water treatment works and came from the wastewater side. The person, the employer and the sites are invented; use your own employer's names for qualifications and sign-offs, because they differ from company to company.

The UK has no state operator licence like the US certificates. Water companies assess operators against their own competence schemes, drinking water quality is regulated by the Drinking Water Inspectorate in England and Wales and by the Drinking Water Quality Regulator in Scotland, and wastewater works run under environmental permits from the Environment Agency, SEPA or Natural Resources Wales. What your CV shows is the training and sign-offs behind that.

• Write the qualification or apprenticeship name and level, and the processes you are signed off on (drinking water treatment, networks, wastewater treatment, sludge treatment), as your employer's competence record shows them.
• Say your National Water Hygiene card is current. Water companies expect it from anyone working on drinking water assets, and an expired card can keep you off site.
• If you are signed off on more than one area, list them all. Smaller and rural areas love an operator who covers clean water and wastewater, or treatment and networks.
• If your experience is from another water company or from abroad, say which processes you were signed off on there. Each company reassesses competence against its own scheme, so do not assume a sign-off carries over.
• If you are still a trainee, write it that way: "Trainee process operator, year 2 of a Level 3 apprenticeship, filtration and disinfection signed off as of August 2026". Water companies hire at this stage all the time.
• Add the training behind the sign-offs: confined space, chlorine gas handling, isolation and locking off, forklift, a full driving licence if you hold one, and first aid.

• Your sign-offs and hygiene card. This is a hard filter, because the works needs competent operators on every shift.
• Works size and type. Megalitres a day, surface water or groundwater, conventional or membrane, activated sludge, biological filters or SBR. An operator from a 2 Ml/d borehole site is a different hire from one who has run a 45 Ml/d conventional works, and both are legitimate.
• Compliance history. Permit breaches, drinking water compliance failures, pollution incidents, boil water notices. If your record is clean, say so with a number of years. It is the strongest sentence you can write.
• How much you do yourself. Lab work, chemical dosing maintenance, pump and blower repair, SCADA troubleshooting. Small sites need operators who are also fitters; large ones want to know where you fit.
• Shift and call-out reality. Nights, 12-hour rotations, weekend standby, storm response. Say plainly that you can do it, and how far you live from the works if that is an advantage.

“Grade first, then plant size, then whether they have ever had a violation on their watch. An operator who can tell me how they fixed a bulking event or a turbidity spike is worth three who list the equipment in the building.”

Use a personal statement once you hold any sign-off or works experience. A career objective only makes sense if you are entering the field with no works time, and even then it should name the training you are working towards.

Anyone can list the tanks on site. What a works manager wants is evidence that you changed something because a number told you to. Eight rewrites.

Twelve to sixteen items. Keep the clean water and wastewater sides visibly separate if you cover both, so a works manager can see what applies to their site.

Process:

• Drinking water: coagulation and flocculation, clarification, filtration (rapid gravity, slow sand, membrane, granular activated carbon), disinfection by chlorine, chloramine, UV or ozone, plumbosolvency control, pH and alkalinity adjustment
• Distribution: flushing programmes, service reservoir turnover, pressure zones, disinfectant residual maintenance, burst main response
• Wastewater: screening and grit removal, primary settlement, activated sludge, sequencing batch reactors, biological filters, lagoons, final settlement, tertiary treatment and UV disinfection
• Sludge: anaerobic and aerobic digestion, belt press or centrifuge dewatering, sludge cake handling and land-spreading records
• Nutrient removal: nitrification, denitrification and phosphorus removal where your works does it

Lab, equipment and systems:

• Process control testing: turbidity, pH, alkalinity, chlorine residual (DPD), dissolved oxygen, settleometer, MLSS and MLVSS
• Compliance testing and sampling: BOD and COD, suspended solids, ammonia, nitrate, phosphorus, total coliform and E. coli sampling, chain of custody
• SCADA operation, alarm response, trend review, and basic PLC and instrument troubleshooting
• Chemical dosing pumps, gas chlorine systems and emergency kits, day tanks, bulk delivery receiving
• Pumps, blowers, motors, valves and VSDs; planned maintenance and work orders in a maintenance system
• Confined space entry, isolation and locking off, hydrogen sulphide monitoring, respiratory protection
• Record-keeping to the works' permit and regulatory sampling deadlines

One more thing worth a line: maths. Competence assessments and daily work both run on dosage, retention time, loading rate and pumping calculations. "Comfortable with works process calculations" is a claim you may be asked to demonstrate, and it belongs on the page if it is true.

This field has a genuine shortage of process staff and hires beginners, but it hires them into trainee roles with sign-offs to earn: you have to build experience and pass each competence assessment. Show that you know that and have started.

• Get the basics in place before you apply if you can. A National Water Hygiene card and a confined space course are short, and "hygiene card held, confined space trained" moves you ahead of everyone who has only expressed interest.
• Transferable experience: plant or building maintenance, pump and motor work, boiler operation, swimming pool plant operation, farm irrigation, oil and gas water handling, laboratory technician work, forces engineering and marine engineering roles.
• Emphasise mechanical ability. Small sites need operators who can rebuild a pump, and this is the fastest way for a beginner to become useful.
• Say you will work nights, rotating 12-hour shifts, weekends and standby. Works run 24 hours a day and this is the honest ask.
• Add a full driving licence, since mobile operator roles cover several sites, and any confined space, forklift or first aid training.
• A relevant BTEC, HNC or science A-levels are a strong entry line, and water companies run apprenticeships that combine college training with works experience. Check each company's entry requirements.

• One page for up to ten years. Two pages for a works manager or area manager with several sites and permits.
• Order: contact line with your hygiene card and sign-offs, personal statement, experience, skills, qualifications and training, education.
• Plain single column, no photo, no date of birth. Water companies use applicant tracking systems, and many add screening questions to the online application; answer them fully even if they repeat the CV, because shortlisting often starts from those answers.
• Mirror the advert's exact wording where true: process operator or process technician, Ml/d, surface water, groundwater, activated sludge, SCADA, NTU, disinfection, permit compliance, standby, and the regulator's name.
• Give one compliance sentence its own line, such as "3 years with no drinking water compliance failures" or "34 consecutive monthly returns with no permit breach".
• Send a PDF named Firstname-Lastname-Water-Operator-CV.pdf, and expect reference checks, a health questionnaire and often a drug and alcohol screen and a medical, since the job involves confined spaces and respirator use.