5 CV examples · UK · Updated October 2026
Bar Staff CV Examples and Templates (UK)
A strong bar staff CV shows a manager three things fast: you serve drinks quickly and accurately, you handle cash, cards and ID checks responsibly, and you are reliable on late and weekend shifts. Lead with a short personal profile, then prove it with results.
Bar Staff CV at a glance
- Best format
- Reverse-chronological, single column, personal profile first
- Length
- 1 page for most; 2 pages for bar supervisors
- Top skills
- Fast, accurate drinks service, Cash, card and tab handling, Challenge 25 ID checks, Cellar work and line cleaning
- Key qualifications
- Level 2 Award in Food Safety, Personal licence (supervisors and managers), Food and beverage team member apprenticeship (England)
- Average salary
- £19,000 to £24,000 a yearstarter to experienced, National Careers Service
- Typical hours
- 30 to 40 a week, variableevenings, weekends, bank holidays on shifts
5 bar staff CV examples for 2026
Below are 5 UK bar staff CV examples, from a student with no bar experience to a bar supervisor, plus personal profiles, skills, bullet points, licensing keywords and a free bar staff CV template in Word for every example. Each one is shown at true A4 size and comes with a free single-column Word template. Open any example to read it in full.
Swipe to see all 5 examples →
Zara Iqbal
Bar Staff
Exeter · zara.iqbal@email.com · 07700 900314
Profile
Second-year Business and Management student with two years of weekend café work, taking orders, making coffee and handling cash and card payments at a busy counter. Calm in a queue, quick to learn a menu and used to closing down to a checklist. Seeking evening and weekend bar shifts that fit around university study.
Employment History
Social Secretary, Netball club (student society), Exeter Jun 2026 – Present
- Plan termly socials for a 60-member club, booking venues and confirming numbers with bar teams.
- Agreed a set food deal with a city-centre pub for a 45-person social, within the society budget.
- Planned an alcohol-free welcome social for freshers’ week that sold out all 40 places.
Volunteer Events Steward, Students’ union, Exeter Oct 2025 – Present
- Steward queues and the cloakroom at club nights of up to 800, checking tickets and wristbands.
- Top up water stations and walk unwell students to the welfare team, following safeguarding steps.
- Collected glasses and restocked bottle fridges in freshers’ week, learning the glasswasher routine.
Café Assistant (weekends and holidays), Larkspur Coffee Co, Reading Jun 2023 – Aug 2025
- Served up to 150 customers on a Saturday, taking orders at the till and making espresso drinks to recipe.
- Cashed up at close and balanced takings to the EPOS report, with no unexplained shortfalls.
- Answered allergen questions from the ingredient folder for the 14 major allergens.
- Restocked the drinks fridge and milk station between rushes, rotating stock by use-by date.
- Trained three new Saturday starters on the coffee machine, card terminal and closing checklist.
Education & Qualifications
BSc (Hons) Business and Management, University of Exeter (2025 – 2028)
A-levels (2025): Business (A), Economics (A), Sociology (B)
9 GCSEs grades 9-4 including English (7) and Maths (6), 2023
Level 2 Food Hygiene and Safety for Catering (online course), 2024
Key Skills
Customer service · Cash and card payments · Order taking and memory · EPOS tills and card machines · Close-down checklists · Allergen awareness · Event stewarding · Teamwork on busy shifts
Availability
- Term time: weekday evenings from 5pm and all day at weekends, including late finishes
- University holidays: full-time, including bank holidays
Achievements
- Students’ union Volunteer of the Month (March 2026) for stewarding a 600-guest charity ball
Why this example works
- Turns café and stewarding work into bar evidence: queues, cash-ups, allergens and close-down routines a bar manager recognises immediately.
- Gives availability its own section, answering the rota question before the interview, including late finishes.
- Shows welfare awareness from stewarding, which matters to venues that train staff to spot and help vulnerable customers.
Why this example works
- Leads with cellar work (venting, tapping, line cleaning and ullage) that separates a pub bartender from someone who only pours.
- Uses match-day crowds and a logged Challenge 25 routine to prove speed and responsibility under pressure.
- Lists fluent Welsh, a genuine plus for pubs and hospitality employers in Wales.
Applying through an online portal? Use the Word download: it is the same CV in a single-column, ATS-safe layout. Keep this two-column design for emailing and networking.
Kirsty Galbraith
Senior Cocktail Bartender
Glasgow · kirsty.galbraith@email.com · 07700 900583 · linkedin.com/in/kirstygalbraith
Skills & Tools
Personal Profile
Cocktail bartender with five years in Glasgow late bars, hotel bars and cocktail bars, now senior bartender at a 90-cover cocktail bar. Builds classics and house serves at speed, writes seasonal menus and coaches new bartenders on technique. Holds the WSET Level 2 Award in Spirits and a Scottish personal licence. Seeking a head bartender role in Glasgow.
Employment History
Senior Bartender, Lantern & Lark, Glasgow Mar 2024 – Present
- Co-write three seasonal menus a year, costing every serve and cutting the list to the 12 best sellers.
- Lead a three-station bar on Saturdays, keeping ticket times under five minutes with batched syrups.
- Built a five-serve low and no-alcohol menu section that now makes up a tenth of cocktail sales.
- Train new starters on the spec book, jigger accuracy and the bar’s age verification policy.
Bartender, The Merriwyn Hotel, Glasgow Sep 2022 – Feb 2024
- Served guests and conference delegates across the lobby bar, room service and private dining events.
- Recommended whiskies from a 140-bottle back bar, matching each pour to a guest’s taste and budget.
- Charged drinks to room accounts and reconciled open tabs with the front desk at checkout.
- Ran a weekly whisky flight for hotel guests, comparing three Scotch regions with a short tasting talk.
Bar Back, Neon Thistle, Glasgow Aug 2021 – Aug 2022
- Kept a 600-capacity late bar stocked with ice, glassware and spirits on Friday and Saturday nights until 3am.
- Changed kegs and post-mix syrups mid-service and cleared spillages fast to keep the floor safe.
- Passed the two-hour staff training Scottish law requires before selling alcohol, then moved onto the bar.
Education & Qualifications
Highers (2019 – 2020): English (B), Business Management (B), Art and Design (C)
National 5s: 7 including English and Maths, 2018
Training & Certificates
WSET Level 2 Award in Spirits, 2024 · Scottish Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (SCPLH), 2025
Achievements
- Created the bar’s best-selling serve of 2025, a whisky highball now on the permanent menu
Why this example works
- Proves craft with menu, costing and low and no-alcohol results instead of listing cocktail names.
- Names the WSET spirits award and SCPLH personal licence, credentials that cocktail bar managers in Scotland recognise.
- Shows a clear bar back to senior bartender progression in five years across late bar, hotel and cocktail settings.
Dawid Sobczak
Event Bar Staff
London · dawid.sobczak@email.com · 07700 900726 · linkedin.com/in/dawidsobczak
Profile
Event bar staff with six years in London retail and hospitality, the last five in hotel and event bars. Fast and accurate on card-only bars that must clear half-time and interval rushes, WAVE-trained and calm with crowds, and able to build a pop-up bar from a bare counter. Fluent in Polish and English, with full right to work in the UK; seeking a bar team leader role.
Employment History
Event Bar Staff (agency), Brightline Event Staffing, London Apr 2024 – Present
- Cover three to five agency shifts a week at arena, stadium and festival bars.
- Pre-pour pints ahead of half-time and intervals, so a four-person concourse bar clears its rush before play restarts.
- Reconcile each handheld card terminal against the bar’s closing stock count.
- Respond to Ask for Angela requests and refer intoxicated or vulnerable customers to welfare and security teams.
Bar and Banqueting Assistant, The Quayborne Hotel, London Sep 2021 – Mar 2024
- Set up and ran cash and open bars for weddings, awards dinners and conferences of up to 280 guests in the ballroom.
- Served welcome drinks and wine at table, in step with each course.
- Tracked open bar spend against each host’s agreed limit and warned the event manager well before it ran out.
- Covered the lobby bar on quiet weekdays, learning cocktails and room charges.
Night Replenishment Assistant, Fairmead Supermarkets, Croydon Sep 2020 – Aug 2021
- Filled the beers, wines and spirits aisle overnight, rotating stock by date.
- Completed manual handling training, now applied to moving kegs, crates and ice at events.
Education & Qualifications
Matura (Polish upper secondary school leaving certificate), 2020
Training & Certificates
WAVE (Welfare and Vulnerability Engagement) training, 2024 · Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering, 2024
Key Skills
Draught at volume · Pre-pouring · Card terminals · Function bars · Wine service · Challenge 25 · Pop-up bars · Queue management
Why this example works
- Groups agency shifts under one dated agency entry instead of listing dozens of one-night events.
- Quantifies high-volume, card-only service at half-time and intervals, the core skill event bar managers hire for.
- Puts WAVE training and right to work in plain view, two checks that event staffing agencies and venues make early.
Why this example works
- Runs to two pages because supervision, cash office, rotas and stock results need the space; the newest role carries the most detail.
- Puts the personal licence and Level 3 supervisor apprenticeship up front, signalling readiness for a deputy manager post.
- Measures management impact with stock results, labour cost and adopted training, not just shift duties.
Bar Staff personal profile examples
Copy the personal profile that matches your level, then swap in your own experience, settings and results.
Second-year university student with a year of weekend retail work and regular volunteering at student events. Confident handling cash and card payments, quick to learn a drinks list and happy working until close. Looking for evening and weekend bar staff shifts in term time and full-time hours in the holidays.
Customer-focused retail supervisor moving into bar work after six years on tills and the shop floor. Trusted with cash-ups, Challenge 25 checks on alcohol sales and training new starters. Comfortable on late and weekend shifts and keen to learn cellar work and cocktails in a busy pub or hotel bar.
Pub bartender with four years in a busy community and sports pub, pouring cask and keg beer to standard and changing barrels mid-service. Accurate with card tabs and cash-ups, calm with big groups and firm but friendly when refusing service. Holds a Level 2 food safety award and seeks a full-time role with cellar responsibility.
Cocktail bartender with three years in high-volume city-centre bars, confident with classics, house specs and speed rounds on a busy Saturday. Preps syrups, garnishes and batches to recipe, keeps drink costs tight and recommends serves that suit each guest. Working towards the WSET Level 2 Award in Spirits and looking for a senior bartender role.
Bar supervisor and personal licence holder with seven years in pubs and hotels, leading shifts of up to six, running cash-up and banking and keeping the cellar to Cask Marque standard. Writes rotas to budget, cuts stock loss through tighter counts and trains every new starter. Ready for an assistant or deputy manager role.
Best skills for a bar staff CV
List the skills the job advert and person specification name, in the same wording, and prove the important ones in your employment history.
Hard skills
- Pouring cask, keg and draught stout
- Cocktail making to spec
- Wine, beer and spirits knowledge
- Cash, card and contactless payments
- Opening and closing bar tabs
- Challenge 25 ID checks and refusals log
- Cellar management and keg changes
- Beer line cleaning
- Stock rotation, ordering and stocktakes
- Glasswasher, ice and bar hygiene
- Allergen information for food and drinks
- Cash-up and till reconciliation
Soft skills
- Friendly, quick rapport with customers
- Staying calm in a three-deep rush
- Good memory for orders and regulars
- Teamwork behind a tight bar
- Tact when refusing service
- Reliability on late and weekend shifts
- Recommending and upselling drinks
Systems and equipment
- EPOS tills and handheld order pads
- Card terminals and pre-authorised tabs
- Order-at-table apps and QR menus
- Glasswashers and ice machines
- Beer engines, keg couplers and gas cylinders
- Boston shakers, jiggers and bar tools
- Cellar cooling and temperature probes
Qualifications and training
- Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders (England and Wales)
- Scottish Certificate for Personal Licence Holders (SCPLH)
- Food and beverage team member Level 2 apprenticeship (England)
- Hospitality supervisor Level 3 apprenticeship (England)
- Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering
- WSET Level 1 or Level 2 Award in Spirits or Wines
- Cask Marque Cellar Management Course
Bar Staff CV bullet point examples
Strong bullets pair an action verb with a specific task and a measurable result. Adapt these to your own numbers.
Drinks service and speed
- Served a 40-cover beer garden alone on summer weekday evenings, taking orders at table and running drinks within five minutes.
- Learned a list of 60 gins and their garnishes within a fortnight, recommending serves that lifted premium gin sales.
- Poured every spirit with a 25ml jigger and every pint to the line, keeping spirit variance close to zero at monthly stocktakes.
Cash, tabs and EPOS
- Opened and closed card tabs for 30-plus tables on quiz nights, splitting bills accurately at the end of the evening.
- Spotted a £20 shortfall in the opening float at handover and recounted it with the supervisor, so the night’s takings balanced.
- Switched the bar to a new EPOS system over one weekend, setting up drink buttons and teaching colleagues the shortcuts.
Cellar, stock and hygiene
- Kept the bar pouring through a Friday cellar cooler breakdown by moving lager kegs to the spare cooler and calling the engineer.
- Placed the weekly drinks order from par levels and sales history, cutting out-of-stocks on the top-selling lagers.
- Cleaned and sanitised the ice machine and scoops on a written schedule, logging each clean for environmental health visits.
Licensing, safety and welfare
- Calmed a heated row after a Challenge 25 refusal by explaining the policy to the whole group, who stayed on for food and soft drinks.
- Passed a trading standards test purchase on a busy Friday night by asking a young-looking customer for ID and refusing the sale.
- Set up a water and welfare point on student nights, cutting first-aid call-outs by a third over the spring term.
Action verbs for a bar staff CV
Start each bullet with a precise verb instead of “responsible for”.
- Served
- Poured
- Mixed
- Garnished
- Recommended
- Upsold
- Greeted
- Processed
- Balanced
- Reconciled
- Restocked
- Rotated
- Changed
- Cleaned
- Vented
- Tapped
- Ordered
- Counted
- Trained
- Supervised
- Organised
- Prioritised
- Refused
- Logged
- Resolved
- Coordinated
- Prepared
- Batched
Find more by category with the free action verb finder.
Best CV format for a bar staff
Use a reverse-chronological bar staff CV in a single column: personal profile, key skills, employment history, then education and training. Most bar staff fit on one side of A4; bar supervisors can use two. Leave off a photo, date of birth and full address.
| Your situation | Format | Length | Lead with |
|---|---|---|---|
| No experience or student | Reverse-chronological: profile, skills, transferable roles | 1 page | Availability, café or retail work, volunteering |
| Experienced pub bartender | Reverse-chronological | 1 page | Venue type, cask and keg, cellar tasks, speed |
| Cocktail bartender | Reverse-chronological | 1 page | Menus, specs, spirits knowledge, WSET awards |
| Event, festival or agency bar staff | Reverse-chronological, agency work grouped | 1 page | Crowd sizes, card-only service, welfare training |
| Career changer into bar work | Hybrid: profile and transferable skills first | 1 page | Cash handling, customer service, Challenge 25 |
| Bar supervisor | Reverse-chronological | 2 pages | Shift leadership, cash-up, rotas, personal licence |
Every example above follows these rules, on A4 and without a photo, date of birth or full address.
How to write a bar staff CV that gets you hired
A bar staff CV gets you hired when it proves you serve quickly, handle money and ID checks responsibly, and turn up for late shifts. Bar managers skim in seconds, so put your best evidence in the personal profile and the first bullet of every role.
Name the venue type and its scale: community pub, cocktail bar, hotel, music venue or stadium. Then add numbers, such as covers, crowd size, tabs, ticket times or wastage cut. ‘Served crowds three deep on match days’ beats ‘worked behind the bar’.
State your availability. The National Careers Service says bar staff usually work 30 to 40 variable hours a week on shifts that include evenings, weekends and bank holidays, so a line such as ‘available Thursday to Sunday, including late finishes’ answers a manager’s first question.
Bar staff, bartender, bar person and bar team member describe overlapping jobs, so this advice works for a bartender CV too. Use the exact title from the advert under your name.
Bar staff CV with no experience
You can write a bar staff CV with no experience by using café, retail, kitchen, stewarding or volunteering work as evidence. The National Careers Service says employers look for strong customer service and communication skills when you apply directly.
Lead with a personal profile that names the job, your availability and one relevant strength, such as cash handling or staying calm in a queue. Glass collecting, bar back and food running are common first steps, and each belongs on your CV with a concrete result.
In England, apprenticeships offer another route in, such as the Food and beverage team member Level 2 apprenticeship, which lists bar person and bartender among its job titles.
Career changers from retail, care or customer service already bring cash handling, ID checks and patience under pressure. Use a hybrid layout that puts those transferable skills first, then your employment history.
Keywords to include in a bar staff CV
Pub groups, hotel chains and event agencies take applications online, and many screen them with applicant tracking systems before a manager reads them. Mirror the advert’s exact words, such as ‘bar team member’, ‘cellar’ or ‘Challenge 25’, in your skills and bullets.
- Customer service, drinks service, upselling, product knowledge
- Cask ale, keg, draught, cellar management, line cleaning
- Cocktails, spirits, wine service, specs, batching, garnishes
- EPOS, card tabs, cash handling, cash-up, till reconciliation
- Challenge 25, age verification, refusals log, licensing
- Food safety, allergens, glasswasher, bar hygiene
- Events, functions, high volume, match days, late bars
Licensing, Challenge 25 and personal licences on your CV
You do not need a personal licence to work behind a bar in England and Wales. In pubs and bars with a premises licence, which is most of them, every alcohol sale must be made or authorised by a personal licence holder. Supervisors with one should list it prominently.
To get a personal licence in England and Wales you must be 18 or over, pass an accredited qualification such as the Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders and apply to your local council. Since April 2015 these licences no longer need renewing.
Scotland differs: staff who sell or serve alcohol need at least two hours of prescribed training, Challenge 25 has been mandatory since October 2011, and personal licence holders hold the SCPLH with refresher training every five years. Northern Ireland has no personal licence system.
In England and Wales, licensed premises must have an age verification policy requiring ID with a photo, date of birth and a hologram or ultraviolet feature. Selling alcohol to someone who is drunk is an offence, so a bullet showing calm, logged refusals carries real weight.
What to include and leave off a UK bar staff CV
| ✓ Include | ✗ Avoid |
|---|---|
| A 3-5 line personal profile naming the venue type and the job you want | A photo, date of birth, age, marital status or nationality |
| Your availability: evenings, weekends, late finishes and bank holidays | Your full home address or National Insurance number |
| Drinks you can pour or make: cask, keg, cocktails, wine, coffee | Duty lists such as ‘served drinks’ with no venue, scale or result |
| Cash, card and tab handling, with accuracy results | An ‘objective’ in place of a personal profile |
| Challenge 25, refusals and any licensing or welfare training | Referees’ names and phone numbers |
| Cellar work, stock counts and hygiene routines if you have them | Jokes about drinking or nights out, even for a lively venue |
| Numbers: covers, crowd size, service times, sales or wastage | Tables, text boxes and graphics that applicant tracking systems misread |
| A personal licence, WSET award or food safety certificate if held | Every school grade in full when a one-line summary will do |
How to write a bar staff CV
- Read the job advert closely. Highlight the venue type, shift pattern and skills the advert repeats, such as cask ale, cocktails, events or table service. Those words become your CV keywords, and the shift pattern tells you which evenings, weekends and late finishes to offer.
- Write a personal profile. In three to five lines, say who you are, your bar or customer service experience, one strength with a result and the role you want. Finish with your availability, because rotas decide many bar applications.
- List your key skills. Choose 8 to 12 skills that match the advert, mixing hard skills like pouring, cocktails, cellar work and cash handling with soft skills like teamwork and staying calm in a rush. Keep each one short enough to scan.
- Show results in your employment history. List roles newest first with job title, venue, town and dates. Give each role three to five bullets that start with an action verb and include a number: crowd size, covers, tabs, stock results or waste cut.
- Add qualifications and training. Summarise GCSEs or Scottish qualifications in one line, then list short courses that bars value: food safety, WSET spirits or wine, cellar management, first aid, welfare and vulnerability training and, for supervisors, a personal licence qualification.
- Check length, layout and spelling. Keep to one side of A4 unless you supervise shifts and have management results to show. Use a single column, a clear font and UK spelling, leave off a photo and date of birth, and save as Word or PDF as the application asks.
Bar Staff salary in the UK
National averages for England. Use them to benchmark offers, not as a promise for any single job.
The National Careers Service puts average pay for a bar person at £19,000 a year for new starters, rising to around £24,000 with experience. Typical hours are 30 to 40 a week, variable, with evenings, weekends, bank holidays on shifts.
Source: National Careers Service, Bar person job profile (Department for Education), contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures are averages; pay varies by region, employer and experience.
Covering letter tip for a bar staff
Open by naming the venue and the role, then give one example that proves you suit it, such as a match-day rush, a cocktail you added to a menu or a busy close you cashed up alone. End with your exact availability. Keep it under 200 words and match the venue’s tone.
Start from our cover letter templates or draft one in seconds with the cover letter generator.
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