Forklift drivers operate specialised industrial vehicles to deliver payloads to different areas of a construction or civil engineering site. Your career as a forklift driver includes loading and unloading heavy and often hazardous materials. Let’s have a look at what your career as a forklift driver would actually involve and where your career as a forklift driver can take you.
Working as a Forklift Driver
Forklift drivers work on all construction projects and construction-related warehouses and facilities to ensure materials are delivered on time and safely to the right location. In your career as a forklift driver, some of your responsibilities would be:
- Transporting materials to different locations on the construction site
- Securing materials and loads properly to the vehicle prior to transportation
- Inspecting vehicles for damage and reporting any incidents in a proper fashion
- Managing inventory and payloads using technology
- Packaging orders for shipment
- Identifying and remedying any hazards on your route
- Ensuring the vehicle is in proper working order and scheduling and necessary repairs
Career Path
In your career as a forklift driver you will be expected to operate vehicles of different scales and size depending on the job in hand. Some of the other roles you will work alongside would include:
- Foreperson
- Site manager
- Bricklayer
- Plumber
- Finishing foreperson
- Construction labourer
- Pipe layer
- Window fitter
- Roofer
- Glazier
- Iron worker
- Health & Safety
- HSE Officer
- Heavy equipment operator
- Site clerk
Professional qualifications
Forklift training courses are necessary to ensure you can safely and efficiently operate a complex piece of machinery. Courses need to be certified and recognised by relevant bodies such as SOLAS and the RSA and adhere to Irish Health & Safety legislation. Courses range from novice up to expert or instructor level. If you need to operate a particular type of forklift you would need to undergo a coversion course or specialised trianing on that vehcile on the site. You would also need to have all the necessary construction safety accreditation to enable you to work safely on any designated constrution environment.
How your Career can Develop?
As a forklift driver or operator, you can continue to advance your skills up to instructor level, where you will be an asset to your employer in terms of training other personnel. You can also offer your advanced driving or instructional training to companies which run forklift courses. Experienced forklift drivers can also take on supervisory or management roles within logistics, distribution or construction warehouse management environments.