Welder CV Examples & Writing Guide

A one-page CV for a welder with eight years split between industrial pipework and a structural steel fabrication shop. The name and companies are made up. Notice that the title line names the standards he is coded to, and that every bullet gives a process, a position, a material or a size, and an inspection result. That is the pattern to copy.

Welder CVs are read by a workshop foreman, a QC manager or a site supervisor. Most of them will make you weld a test plate before hiring you anyway, so the CV has one job: convince them you are worth the cost of a test. They look for four things.

• Process and position. MMA, MIG/MAG, FCAW or TIG, and 1G through 6G. "Welding" tells them nothing. "FCAW 3G and 4G plate, TIG 6G stainless pipe, coded to 9606-1" tells them exactly which test to hand you.
• Standard and material. Coded welder certificates to BS EN ISO 9606-1 (steel) or 9606-2 (aluminium); structural steelwork made to BS EN 1090; pressure pipework and vessels, often to ASME Section IX and B31.3 on petrochemical sites; pipelines to the client's own specification. Then the metals: carbon, stainless, aluminium, chrome-moly, and the thickness or pipe schedule range.
• Quality record with numbers. Repair or reject rate on X-rayed or UT-tested welds, first-time acceptance rate, hydrotest results. A stated 1.4% repair rate carries more weight than a paragraph about attention to detail.
• The practical facts: can you read drawings and weld symbols, do you fit your own work, do you have a full UK driving licence and your own mask and hand tools, can you pass a drugs and alcohol test and work 12-hour shutdown shifts or work away.

“Every welder we hire tests out, so the CV only decides who gets a test plate. If it lists the process, the position, the code and a repair rate, that person tests the same week. If it just says 'welding' and 'attention to detail', it goes to the bottom of the pile.”

"Coded" and "qualified" can mean two different things, and hiring managers know the difference. A coding test is a welder qualification test to a specific procedure (a WPS, welding procedure specification) under a standard such as BS EN ISO 9606-1 or, on much petrochemical work, ASME Section IX. It is witnessed by the employer's welding coordinator or an independent examiner. The certificate names you, but it only stays valid while someone confirms every six months that you are still welding in that range, and it must also be revalidated every two or three years, by a retest or by records of tested production welds, depending on the route the employer uses. Most new employers retest you to their own procedures anyway. A college course, NVQ or apprenticeship is different: it proves training and competence and never expires, but it is not a coded ticket. List both kinds, but be honest about which is which.

• Required on most industrial and structural jobs: a passed coding test to the employer's procedure (they give it), a CSCS card for construction sites, and a full UK driving licence. Refineries, chemical plants and power stations usually also want a CCNSG Safety Passport and their own site induction.
• Strong plus: a current coded certificate in the process the shop uses; NVQ Level 3 in fabrication and welding or a completed Level 3 apprenticeship; a CSWIP welding inspector qualification if you have moved towards QC. There is no general licence to weld in the UK, so the coding and the qualification do that job.
• Nice to have: manufacturer training (ESAB, Lincoln, Kemppi), slinger/signaller and crane cards, first aid at work, and any NDT (non-destructive testing) coursework.
• Do not write "coded welder" on its own. Say which test, which standard, which process and position, who witnessed it and when. A welding inspector will ask, and a vague answer costs you the interview.

Three lines at the top: years and the kind of welding, your processes and positions with the standard, and one quality or safety number. Use a career objective only if you have just finished college or an apprenticeship or are switching from another trade; a personal statement once you have workshop time.

List 10 to 14 skills a foreman could test you on. Sort them to match the job: processes and positions first for a fabrication shop or contractor, output and equipment first for a production line, setting out and fit-up first for a fabricator job. Group them so they are easy to scan.

• Processes: MMA/stick (111), MIG/MAG (135; short-circuit, spray and pulsed), FCAW (136 gas-shielded and 114 self-shielded flux-cored), TIG (141, including purged stainless and aluminium), submerged arc for heavy plate, oxy-fuel and plasma cutting, carbon arc gouging.
• Positions and joints: 1G to 4G plate, 1F to 4F fillet, 2G, 5G and 6G pipe (or the ISO positions PA to PF, PH and H-L045); butt, fillet, socket and branch welds; open root, backing strip, consumable insert.
• Materials and sizes: carbon steel, stainless (304/316, duplex), aluminium (5xxx and 6xxx), chrome-moly (P11, P22, P91), cast iron repair; plate thickness range and pipe size and schedule range.
• Standards and documents: BS EN ISO 9606-1 and 9606-2 coding; BS EN 1090 structural steelwork; ASME Section IX and B31.1/B31.3 on process plant; API 1104 on pipelines; reading WPS and WPQR, fabrication drawings, isometrics, BS EN ISO 2553 weld symbols, weld maps.
• Fabrication: setting out, squaring and fit-up to tolerance, tacking sequence, distortion control, preheat and interpass temperature, purging, grinding and finishing, basic press brake, guillotine and punch and shear.
• Inspection: visual inspection with fillet and undercut gauges, preparing welds for UT, RT, MPI and dye penetrant testing, reading an NDT report and repairing rejects.
• Equipment: Miller, Lincoln and Kemppi multi-process sets, engine-driven welder generators, wire feeders, Hypertherm plasma, track burners, overhead cranes, forklifts, MEWPs, slinging and signalling.
• Safety and site: CSCS card or CCNSG Safety Passport, hot-work permits and fire watch, confined space, welding fume control (LEV and RPE), isolation and lock-out/tag-out, working 12-hour shutdown shifts or nights.

A good welding bullet has four parts: what you welded (product, material, size), how (process, position, standard), how much (tonnage, joints, metres of weld, parts per shift, hours) and the result (acceptance rate, repair rate, programme, no injuries). Pull the numbers from the shop's QC log, NDT reports, production sheets and your own test records.

Workshops hire beginners all the time, as welder's mates, fabricator's assistants and tack welders, because they can test you in an hour. What they cannot test in an hour is whether you will turn up at 6am, grind for eight hours without complaining and keep your mask down. Your CV has to prove those things with specifics, plus every welding hour you can document.

1. 1Header: name, phone, email, town, then one line of practical facts: full UK driving licence and your own transport, own welding mask and basic hand tools, CSCS card if you have it, available for days, nights or 12-hour rotations.
2. 2Career objective (two lines): the type of workshop you want and what you bring: the course or apprenticeship, the tests you passed, any labouring or mechanical work.
3. 3Training first, above work history: course or apprenticeship name, length, processes covered, and the tests you passed with position and standard, and who assessed them. If you logged booth hours, give the number.
4. 4Work history: any job that proves reliability and physical work. Labouring, warehouse, landscaping, garage, farm, armed forces. Add numbers: hours a week, months without a missed shift, weights lifted, tools used.
5. 5Skills: processes you have run, positions you have practised, cutting and grinding tools, tape measure and basic drawing reading, any forklift or crane experience. Keep it honest; you will be tested on every process you list.
6. 6One page, plain layout, saved as a PDF. Bring printed copies: many small workshops still take people on at the door.

A fabricator job is welding plus everything before and after it: reading the drawing, setting out, cutting, forming, fitting, welding, grinding and checking the finished piece. Workshops that advertise for a "welder fabricator" want to know you can take a drawing and a pile of steel and hand back a finished part without a fitter doing half the work.

• Lead with drawing reading and setting out: drawings, weld symbols, tolerances you work to, and whether you can build from a sketch or site measurements.
• List the machines: CNC plasma or laser table, bandsaw, punch and shear, guillotine, press brake (tonnage), tube bender, pillar drill, and the crane or forklift you use to move material.
• Name the products: handrails and stairs, platforms and mezzanines, tanks and hoppers, trailers, equipment skids, lorry bodies, architectural steelwork, food-grade stainless. Each has its own tolerances and finish standards.
• Give fabrication metrics: pieces or tonnes per week, rework or return rate, on-time completion, material saved by nesting or setting out.
• Finish and materials: stainless finishing and passivation, aluminium, preparation for galvanising and powder coating. A fabricator who can grind and finish stainless to a hygienic standard is worth more than one who cannot.

• One page is usually enough. Even a 20-year pipe welder fits on one page: title line, personal statement, coded certificates and tests, work history, skills, education. Use two pages only if you have moved into QC, welding inspection or supervision.
• Coded certificates and weld tests go above work history. Foremen sort on them.
• Plain single-column layout, standard font, no photo, no date of birth. Large fabricators and contractors run CVs through applicant tracking systems (Workday, iCIMS, Taleo); small workshops print them. Both prefer plain.
• Text-based PDF unless the advert asks for Word: Firstname-Lastname-Pipe-Welder.pdf. Scanned images and photos of a paper CV fail ATS parsing.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert: the process names ("MIG", "TIG", "stick", "flux core", "MMA", "MAG" and the ISO numbers 111, 135, 136, 141), "6G", "coded welder", "9606-1", "ASME", "drawings", "fit-up", "fabrication", "stainless", "pipe", "structural", "overhead crane", "forklift", "CSCS". Use the wording the advert uses, then the other form once.
• Applying to American-owned plant or to jobs abroad? US employers ask for AWS or ASME tests and call the document by its US name. Most UK employers want BS EN ISO 9606-1 coding, with ASME Section IX common on petrochemical and oil and gas work. Everything else on this page still applies.

Run the finished CV through the cvplex ATS checker with the job advert pasted in. It flags a process the advert names that you left out, a missing standard or position, and bullets with no size, quantity or inspection result.