Warehouse CV (UK): Format, Tickets and a Worked Example

Britain built an enormous amount of shed space in a short time. The Office for National Statistics, in its April 2022 analysis of the golden logistics triangle, found that the number of UK business premises classified as transport and storage was 88% higher in 2021 than in 2011, and that West Northamptonshire alone had 3,200 of them. In Rugby, 17% of all business units were transport and storage, the highest share in the country.

That is why a warehouse job in Lutterworth, Daventry, Doncaster or Wakefield is never advertised alone. It sits in a list of forty similar adverts, most of them posted by agencies, most of them wanting someone who can start Monday. Your CV is not competing on eloquence. It is competing on how fast a recruiter can find three things: what equipment you are trained on, what shifts you can work, and whether you have done the numbers before.

This is how to write that CV.

Who actually reads it, and how fast

Most warehouse hiring in the UK runs through agencies. Staffline, Blue Arrow, Gi Group, Encore and dozens of regional outfits staff the peaks at the big distribution centres, and a large share of permanent warehouse roles start as an agency assignment that converts later. So your CV usually lands first with a consultant filling a rota, not with a site manager building a team.

That consultant is matching you against a client brief that reads something like "10 x pickers, RF experience, 4 on 4 off nights, immediate start". They are looking for keyword matches and availability, in that order. If your forklift accreditation is buried in a paragraph on page two, it does not exist.

The rest of the market is direct application: Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs, and the government's own Find a job service at findajob.dwp.gov.uk, where you can search "warehouse operative" by postcode and set a travel radius of up to 30 miles. Third party logistics providers and the grocers also run their own career sites. Same CV, same rules.

The format British warehouses expect

The National Careers Service, the government's careers guidance service, sets out what a UK CV contains: contact details, a short personal statement, work history, education and a references line. It also says what to leave off, and this catches out anyone who has job hunted elsewhere in Europe. No photograph. No date of birth, age, marital status or nationality. No referee phone numbers on the page itself, just "References available on request".

One page is enough for most warehouse CVs and two is the ceiling. The same National Careers Service guidance asks for a standard font such as Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman at size 11 or larger, with headings and bullet points rather than paragraphs. Do not build a two column design with icons, because agency systems parse it badly and half the text can vanish on upload.

The running order that works for this sector:

1. Name, phone, email, town and nearest large town
2. Personal profile, three or four lines
3. Licences and tickets
4. Availability
5. Work history, most recent first
6. Education and training
7. References line

Tickets and availability sit high on purpose. On a general CV they would go near the bottom. Here they are the two facts the consultant is actually screening for, so they belong above the fold.

There is no such thing as a forklift licence

This trips people up constantly. AITT, one of the accrediting bodies for lift truck training, puts it bluntly: "there really is no such thing as a forklift operator's licence". What you hold is a certificate of basic training, tied to a specific class of truck, issued under the framework of the Health and Safety Executive's Approved Code of Practice L117. AITT also notes that refresher training is normally expected every three to five years.

So writing "Forklift licence" on your CV tells a recruiter almost nothing. Writing this tells them everything:

Licences and tickets Counterbalance (B1/B2), RTITB accredited, issued 14 March 2024, refresher due March 2027 Reach truck (D1), ITSSAR accredited, issued 2 September 2025 LLOP and powered pallet truck, site trained, Wincanton Rugby, 2023 Manual handling, Level 2 Food Hygiene, banksman

Five lines, and the consultant knows exactly which client briefs you fit. The accrediting bodies are worth naming because they can be verified: AITT, RTITB, ITSSAR, NPORS and Lantra all sit on the Accrediting Bodies Association for workplace transport. If your ticket is site specific rather than accredited, say so honestly. Employers know the difference and would rather find out now than on your first shift.

Your personal profile, before and after

The National Careers Service describes the personal statement as a few short lines summing up who you are and what you are looking for. Most warehouse CVs open with something that could belong to anyone.

Before:

Hardworking and reliable warehouse operative with good attention to detail, seeking a new opportunity within a fast paced environment.

Nothing in that sentence would change if you deleted it. Same person, rewritten:

Warehouse operative with four years on ambient and chilled pick faces in the Daventry and Lutterworth corridor, RTITB counterbalance and ITSSAR reach truck. Comfortable on RF scanning and voice pick, and used to hitting a rate on 4 on 4 off nights. Looking for a permanent role within 25 miles of Rugby.

Now the reader knows your equipment, your environment, your shift tolerance and your travel radius before they have finished their tea.

Turn duties into numbers

The single biggest upgrade to a warehouse CV is deleting "responsible for" and replacing every duty with something countable. Warehousing is one of the few sectors where you genuinely have numbers, because the site measured you every shift.

Before:

Responsible for picking and packing customer orders using a handheld scanner.

After:

Picked an average of 118 lines per hour on RF against a site target of 100, across a 12,000 SKU ambient pick face, with a pick accuracy of 99.6% over the 2025 peak.

Before:

Duties included loading and unloading vehicles and general warehouse housekeeping.

After:

Loaded and unloaded up to 14 trailers per shift on a two bay dock, checked all inbound against ASN paperwork, and logged three damaged pallet deliveries that were recharged to the supplier.

If you do not know your exact figures, use the ones you can defend: pallets per shift, trailers per day, SKU count, aisle count, headcount of the shift you worked on, how many months you held a rate. "Around 100 lines an hour" is fine. Inventing 200 is not, because the trial shift will find you out.

Say what shifts you can work

British warehouses run patterns that most other sectors do not: 4 on 4 off days and nights, 6am to 2pm and 2pm to 10pm continentals, twilight shifts, and Sunday premiums. The National Careers Service lists typical warehouse hours as 40 to 48 per week, often including evenings, weekends and bank holidays.

Put a two line availability block under your profile and be specific.

Availability Available immediately. Happy with nights and 4 on 4 off. Own transport, 30 minutes from Magna Park and DIRFT. Cannot do Sunday days.

Saying what you cannot do is not a weakness. It saves everyone a wasted phone call, and consultants remember the candidates who did not drop out after two shifts.

If you have never worked in a warehouse

You are not blocked. The National Careers Service says you can enter the role by direct application without formal qualifications, though some employers ask for GCSEs at grade 4 in English and maths, and that forklift training often comes after probation rather than before. The other route is an apprenticeship: the Supply Chain Warehouse Operative Level 2 standard from the Institute for Apprenticeships runs for a minimum of 12 months before end point assessment.

Meanwhile, write your CV around transferable evidence. Stockroom work in retail is warehouse work. Kitchen porter shifts prove you can hold a pace. A van driving job proves load security and paperwork. A hobby that involves counting, sorting or logging things counts more than another adjective.

Read the advert properly before you apply

From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour, with £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds, according to GOV.UK. That is the floor, not the market. Indeed's warehouse worker salary page, last updated on 17 August 2026 and based on 31,700 salaries from job postings, puts the UK average at £27,117 a year. The National Careers Service gives a range of £21,000 for a starter to £30,000 for an experienced operative.

Two things follow. An advert quoting the minimum wage for a nights role is quoting below the going rate, because nights normally carry a premium. And if you are going through an agency, Acas is clear that after 12 weeks in the same role with the same hirer you gain the right to the same pay, the same holiday and the same working patterns and rest breaks as a comparable direct employee. Week 13 is worth knowing about before you sign anything.

Before you send it

Read your CV as a consultant would. Can they find your tickets in three seconds? Does your profile name a real site, a real piece of equipment and a real travel radius? Is there a single number on the page that proves you were good at the job? Save it as a PDF unless the advert asks for Word, name the file with your own name rather than "CV final v3", and check the phone number, because a warehouse recruiter will ring rather than email.