How to write a CV for a HGV driver role

What goes in the first third of the page

A transport manager or agency consultant reading your CV is not looking for a personal statement first. They are looking for four things, in roughly this order: licence category, points and endorsements, CPC status, and the vehicle types you've actually driven. Put these near the top, not buried after a career summary. If you hold a Category C+E (Class 1) licence, say so in the first few lines, not halfway down page one. If you only hold C (Class 2), say that too — don't make the reader guess or ring up to find out, because most won't ring, they'll move to the next CV.

State your licence categories in the terms currently used (Category C1, C, C+E) and, if you learned to drive under the old system, it's fine to add "Class 1" or "Class 2" in brackets since plenty of operators and older transport managers still use that language. Give the date you passed, and the number of years you've held each category — "C+E since 2014" tells a reader more than "Class 1 licence".

Points and endorsements matter here in a way they don't for most jobs, because they affect whether an insurer will let an operator put you on their vehicles at all. If your licence is clean, say "full clean licence". If it isn't, don't leave it out hoping it won't come up — it will, at DVLA check stage before any offer is confirmed, and turning up as a surprise then costs you the job in a way that disclosing it upfront usually doesn't. A CV that says "6 points, all speeding, none within the last 2 years" reads as someone who's straightforward to deal with.

Driver CPC, tacograph and the paperwork that proves you're current

Driver Certificate of Professional Competence is not optional for most driving-for-hire work, and its expiry date is one of the first things checked. State your Driver CPC card expiry date directly: "Driver CPC valid to 09/2027". If it's due to expire soon, say what you're doing about it — booked periodic training days, or already completed — because an operator doesn't want to hire someone whose card lapses in six weeks.

Digital tachograph card ownership and in-date status is worth a line too, along with how many years you've worked under EU/GB drivers' hours rules in practice — not as a compliance lecture, just as evidence you've operated within Working Time Directive and drivers' hours limits without incident. If you've had no infringements or a clean tacho record, that's a genuine selling point in this trade and belongs on the page, not left implied.

If you hold an ADR certificate (for carrying dangerous goods), state which classes and the expiry date. If you have a forklift licence, counterbalance or reach, name the type and whether it's in date — plenty of driving roles, especially multi-drop and warehouse-adjacent work, expect a driver who can also load and unload. Don't just write "forklift trained"; write "Counterbalance forklift, RTITB certified, valid to [date]" if that's what you have.

How to describe the work itself

Generic CV advice tells you to describe achievements. In this trade, the equivalent is describing the operation you worked in, specifically enough that a reader can picture the vehicle and the job. "Drove for a logistics company" tells a reader nothing. Better:

• Vehicle type and configuration: artic, drawbar, rigid, tanker, curtainsider, fridge/reefer, tail lift, tipper.
• Nature of the work: trunking (fixed routes, usually nights, often the same yard-to-yard run), multi-drop (retail or parcel delivery, high stop count), tramping (nights out, several days away from base), or ad hoc/agency work.
• Scale, where you can state it honestly: number of drops per shift on multi-drop work, typical mileage per week, or the geographic area covered (national, European if you hold the international experience, regional).
• Load type if relevant to the sector you're applying into: palletised general freight, chilled/frozen food, bulk tanker, ADR-classified goods, abnormal loads.

A line like "Multi-drop delivery driver, 7.5t and Class 2, retail deliveries, 15-25 drops per shift, London and South East" does more work than three sentences of prose. Employers in this field are used to reading CVs that are short on adjectives and long on this kind of concrete detail, and they scan for it because it tells them in seconds whether you can do the specific job on offer.

If you've done nights out (tramping), say so directly and mention any experience with the accommodation and welfare side of that — cab bunk, digs, or company-arranged stops — because plenty of drivers who are excellent on days won't take nights-out work, and operators need to know upfront which category you fall into.

What experienced drivers routinely leave off their CV

A few things come up again and again as omissions, usually because the driver assumes they're obvious or doesn't think to mention them:

Points and their context. As above — leaving this blank rather than disclosing it doesn't make it disappear, it just means it surfaces later at a worse moment.

DCPC hours completed and when. "35 hours completed, last module March 2025" is more useful to a reader than just stating you hold the card, because some operators want to see the training is recent and relevant (some drivers front-load all 35 hours in one block near expiry; some spread it across the five years — a reader may ask about this at interview, so knowing your own record helps).

Medical status. If you've had a D4 medical (required from age 45 for LGV licence holders, and every five years after 65) and it's current, a line stating this removes a question before it's asked. If your next one is due soon, that's fine to mention too.

Specific vehicle makes if you have experience relevant to the fleet you're applying to. If a job advert specifies a particular trailer type — walking floor, moffett-mounted, curtainsider with barn doors — and you've operated one, name it. Don't assume "HGV experience" covers it.

Agency vs. employed history, laid out clearly. Many drivers build experience through agency work across several operators. Rather than one vague line, list the agency and the operators or sectors you were placed with, with rough date ranges. Gaps read worse than a slightly untidy agency history.

Incident-free record, stated plainly. "No claims, no incidents" or "one minor reversing incident, 2022, no injury, reported and closed" — either way, state it. Silence on this reads as absence of the fact, not as a clean record.

Right to work and any relevant international permits, if you've done continental or Irish Sea ferry work — a Kent Access Permit history, or ferry/tunnel booking systems you're used to, is a small detail that separates candidates who can start on a European-facing route immediately from those who'll need training.

What to do with this

Go back through your CV and check, in order: is your licence category and date on the first third of the page; is your CPC expiry date stated; are your points disclosed one way or the other; is at least one line naming the specific vehicle type and delivery pattern for your most recent role; and have you stated your tacograph and medical status without being asked. If any of those five are missing, that's the edit to make before you send anything else out.

If you're applying to several operators with different fleets and route types, tailoring which vehicle experience you lead with for each advert takes real time to do properly — jobmarket.pro reads each advert and builds the CV from your actual driving record for that specific role, rather than sending the same version everywhere.