How to write a CV for a forklift driver role

Start with the licence, not the personal statement

Most forklift CVs open with a paragraph about being "hardworking and reliable". Cut it. The first thing anyone hiring a forklift driver needs to know is whether you're legally allowed to operate the truck on their site, and that isn't a matter of opinion or self-description — it's a certificate with a name, a body, and a date on it.

Put this near the top, not buried in a skills list: which accrediting body issued your certificate (RTITB, ITSSAR, AITT and NPORS are the ones most UK employers recognise), the truck category it covers, and the date it expires. "RTITB Counterbalance, valid to 03/2027" tells a reader everything they need in one line. "Forklift licence" tells them nothing — it doesn't say what you're certified to drive or whether the certificate has lapsed, and a lapsed certificate usually means retraining before you can be put on shift.

If your certificate was issued in-house rather than by an accredited body, say so plainly rather than letting it look accredited. In-house certification is common and often perfectly valid for the site that issued it, but it doesn't always transfer to a new employer, and an employer who assumes otherwise and finds out at induction will not thank you for the ambiguity.

Name the truck types specifically — don't just write "forklift"

"Forklift driver" covers several genuinely different machines, and the differences matter to whoever's reading your CV because they're often hiring for one specific truck, not the category. List each type you're certified or experienced on, separately:

• Counterbalance — the standard truck for loading/unloading trailers and general yard work.
• Reach truck — for narrow-aisle warehouse racking, common in distribution centres.
• VNA (very narrow aisle) — a distinct skill set, often the highest-demand certification in big-box warehousing.
• PPT (powered pallet truck) and pedestrian stacker — lower-level but still certified equipment, worth listing if that's your experience.
• Order picker — for pick-face work at height.
• Pivot steer / telehandler — more common in yards, builders' merchants or outdoor storage.
• Side loader — for long loads, timber and steel yards mainly.

Don't write "experienced on all forklifts" — it reads as vague rather than versatile, and it invites a follow-up question you could have answered in the CV. If you've only ever driven counterbalance, say counterbalance. A reach truck job and a counterbalance job are not interchangeable to the person filling the shift rota, even though the job title on the advert might be identical.

How experience is actually evidenced in this trade

Work history in warehousing and logistics gets read differently to office work. Job titles and dates matter less than what you can show about volume, environment and system.

Environment. State whether you worked in a cold store, ambient warehouse, yard, or mixed site. Cold store work (often minus 18°C to minus 25°C) is its own category — some drivers specialise in it, some actively avoid it, and employers hiring for it want to know you've done it before, partly because of the protective clothing and shift-break requirements that come with it.

Racking and layout. Mention if you've worked with block stacking, drive-in racking, double-deep racking, or narrow-aisle guided systems. These aren't interchangeable skills — a driver used to open floor space and one used to guided VNA racking are doing genuinely different jobs.

Systems. If you used a warehouse management system — SAP, Manhattan, JDA, or a site-specific WMS — alongside an RF scanner or handheld terminal for picking and put-away, say so. Scanner literacy is now assumed in most mid-size and large distribution centres, and a CV that doesn't mention it at all can read as though the applicant has only worked in smaller, less systemised sites.

Numbers, if you actually have them. Pallets moved per shift, order accuracy rate, or damage/incident-free record are the kind of figures this trade uses to differentiate drivers, and if your last site tracked and shared them with you, they're worth including. Don't invent a percentage to fill the space — a manager who's run a warehouse floor will ask where the number came from, and "I don't know, I just put a figure on my CV" ends the conversation badly. If you don't have a tracked figure, describe volume in plain terms instead: "loading and unloading an average of 15–20 trailers per shift" is honest and specific without pretending to be a KPI report.

Shift pattern. State whether your experience is earlies, lates, nights, or rotating, and whether you've done weekend cover. Availability is often the first filter applied to a stack of forklift applications, before qualifications are even checked, because many sites run three shifts and struggle specifically to cover nights.

What a hiring manager scans for first

Someone filling a forklift vacancy — whether that's a warehouse shift manager or a recruitment agency working a logistics contract — is usually working through a stack of CVs fast, often against a shift start date that's already close. In roughly this order, they're checking:

1. Is the licence current, and for the right truck? An expired certificate or one for the wrong truck type is usually an instant no, not a maybe.
2. Is the site/environment experience relevant? Cold store, FMCG, retail distribution, 3PL — these aren't interchangeable, and someone hiring for a specific one will look for it by name.
3. Availability and shift fit. Can you start when they need you, and cover the pattern they're running?
4. Own transport. Distribution centres are frequently sited outside town centres with limited public transport at 4am or 10pm shift changes. Stating you have a full driving licence and your own vehicle, if true, removes a question that otherwise gets asked at the first call.
5. Length and continuity of employment. Gaps aren't automatically a problem in this trade — agency and seasonal work is common — but unexplained short stints at several sites in quick succession will get a question, so a one-line reason ("seasonal contract", "site closure") saves everyone time.

Notice what's not high on that list: a personal statement, a hobbies section, or software skills unrelated to warehouse systems. None of it is actively harmful, but it's competing for attention with the five things above, and on a one-page CV, it usually loses.

What candidates from this background routinely leave out

A few things show up missing more often than they should:

• The certificate's expiry date. Drivers list that they're certified but not when it lapses. Employers need to know before, not after, they've scheduled you for a shift.
• The accrediting body. "Forklift licence" without naming RTITB, ITSSAR, AITT or NPORS leaves a hiring manager guessing whether it's a recognised qualification or in-house sign-off.
• Multiple truck types listed as one line. If you're certified on both counterbalance and reach, list them separately with their own detail rather than folding them into "forklift trucks".
• Cold store or hazardous environment experience. Drivers who've done it sometimes assume it's implied by "warehouse work" and don't name it — it isn't implied, and it's often specifically what's being screened for.
• RF scanner / WMS familiarity. Treated as too obvious to mention, but its absence reads as its absence.
• A named site type. "3PL distribution centre", "retail RDC", "manufacturing yard" — these tell a reader more in three words than a paragraph of general description.

What gets added that doesn't need to be there: general adjectives ("dedicated", "team player"), unrelated IT skills, and long personal-statement paragraphs that repeat what the work history already shows once it's read properly.

What to do next

Pull out your certificate and check the expiry date before you write anything else — that single fact changes what jobs you can honestly apply for right now. Then list every truck type you're certified on separately, with the accrediting body and date for each. Go through your last two roles and note the environment (cold store, ambient, yard), the racking system, and any WMS or scanner you used — these are the details that get a CV read past the first ten seconds. If you're short on tracked numbers, describe volume plainly instead of guessing at a figure.

jobmarket.pro reads the full advert for a forklift role, checks it against your actual licence, truck types and site experience, and builds the application from that — it doesn't invent a certification or a number you don't have.