Recruitment FAQs

Don’t worry. You can set yourself up for a job alert and we'll email you to let you know each time a new job is posted to the career site. You can select as many categories as you like and don't worry, we'll only use the details you provide to inform you about future vacancies. The details you provide will not be used to send unsolicited communication.

There are more than 50 different employers (known as Business Partners) at the airport. Retail, hospitality, customer service and logistics are some of the exciting career opportunities on offer with our many airport-based partners who, between them, employ more than 3,500 people here at Bristol Airport.

Everyone we employ must have the right to work in the UK. We'll ask you to declare this as part of your online application and we'll also ask you to provide evidence of this as part of the recruitment process - usually at your final Interview.

The right to work documents which we accept include: a valid UK Passport, a full UK birth or adoption certificate (together with a document confirming your permanent National Insurance Number), a certificate of Registration or Naturalisation as a British Citizen, or a Residence Card (Biometric Format). A full list of acceptable documents can be found on the gov.uk website.

Understandably given the nature of our business, everyone who is employed at Bristol Airport needs to undergo a full referencing and vetting process. We need different information depending on the job we have offered you. If you are going to be working landside – in other words, in any area of the airport before the security gates, such as our car parks – we'll ask you for two employer references (one from your current or most recent employer and one from a previous employer).

If we have offered you an airside job - working airside means you'll be working beyond the security gates some or all of the time - then we'll ask for details covering everything for the last five years from today’s date. This includes every job, period of unemployment, time spent in education, gap year or time spent travelling for more than 28 consecutive days, or periods as a carer/homemaker.

For all roles we'll carry out a criminal record check to confirm you do not have any live or unspent convictions (this is called a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check or basic disclosure). Please click here to see a list of disqualifying convictions.

It's important to know that if you have resided in another country or countries for 6 months or longer during the last 5 years, and are applying for a job which requires a full Airside Pass, you'll need to get Criminal Record Checks from all the relevant countries to cover this period. Please let us know in advance if you have spent time living abroad, obtaining an international criminal record check can sometimes take time to process. We therefore recommend that you start this process sooner rather than later, to support your application if successful to ensure the smooth running of obtaining your Airside Pass.

Don’t worry, if a company you worked for previously is no longer trading, then you should obtain a Tax Statement (known as an OCA41 document) from HMRC. We will need evidence that the company is no longer trading and will obtain a Gap Reference to support this period.

If you have been self-employed then you should provide the contact details of the accountant you used. If you didn’t use the services of an accountant then you should obtain a SA302 document from HMRC as well as any bank statements confirming your income for this period.

If you were unemployed during a period and registered with an unemployment agency (for example, with the Job Centre), then this agency should provide the reference. Job Centres and benefits offices do provide references on a regular basis to clarify individual dates. If you were unemployed and not registered with an unemployment agency (for example; you may have been supporting yourself financially using savings), then you will need to provide us with a Gap Reference which will be used to cover this period.

A Gap Reference is used to cover periods where you were not employed by an employer or employment agency, and not registered with any unemployment agency. For example housewives (or husbands), student gap years or any holidays that exceeded 28 days. A Gap Reference cannot be for more than 12-months and cannot be completed by someone related to you, or who has lived with you. The referees must be of a reliable source and in a position to verify your whereabouts and how you have supported yourself financially.

This is quite common. If you have been temping or contracting through an employment agency (and not directly employed by a company), we’ll ask you to provide us with the agency name and the contact details of someone who is authorised to provide a reference. Our ID centre will then confirm the employment with the agency to confirm your dates of work.

If you are providing an employment or education reference, it is really important that you provide the name and contact details of the person who is authorised to provide a reference. It is also important that they are still employed by the company (or education establishment) you worked for or attended. If they no longer work for the establishment, please give the office or HR details for us to follow up. Most delays in the referencing process result from the wrong contact details being provided so please make sure up to date and correct details are given. It’s always worthwhile giving your references a heads up we’ll be in contact, they know to respond promptly then.

Absolutely! If you believe that your experience and abilities match more than one vacancy, then we would encourage you to apply for any vacancy where you think there is a good fit. If you are thinking about applying for a job that you have previously applied for, but were unsuccessful, we would just ask that you consider how your experience has changed since you last applied, and how this now more closely matches the needs of the job.

If your application has been unsuccessful, we'll let you know, usually by email. Given the volume of applications received, we're sorry to say that we can't commit to providing detailed feedback to everyone who applies for a job with us, however if you've been interviewed for a role, we'll do our best to ensure we feedback to you on your performance.

Yes. If you do have a question that’s not been answered here, please email it to our Resourcing Team using [email protected], and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Work experience at the airport will give you a taste of what a job here is really like, so you can figure out if you’re interested in that kind of career. Please note that, due to high demand, we currently work exclusively with students from our neighbouring schools at Chew Valley , Backwell and Churchill. Requests for work experience should be sent to the Careers Team by email at [email protected].