diff --git a/source/manual/howto-backup-and-restore-in-aws-rds.html.md b/source/manual/howto-backup-and-restore-in-aws-rds.html.md
index 845655ed07..5b765dfbc6 100644
--- a/source/manual/howto-backup-and-restore-in-aws-rds.html.md
+++ b/source/manual/howto-backup-and-restore-in-aws-rds.html.md
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ This playbook describes how to restore a database instance using Amazon's [RDS B
 
 We use RDS Backups to give us fully nightly backups and point-in-time recovery (PITR) (also known as continuous data protection or CDP).
 
-> We only run RDS Backup in the production environment. To run a test restore in staging or integration, you must first take a manual snapshot from the AWS console.
+> We only run RDS Backup in the production environment. To run a test restore in staging or integration, you must first take a manual snapshot from the AWS console or via the AWS CLI.
 >
 > Make sure the snapshot's name contains the name of the app (e.g. `local-links-manager`), and remember to delete it afterwards.
 
@@ -45,7 +45,25 @@ snapshot_arn="<e.g. arn:aws:rds:eu-west-1:210287912431:snapshot:rds:local-links-
 
 If no snapshots are available on Integration for the drill you can manually take a snapshot. You can do this in the [RDS Snapshots](https://eu-west-1.console.aws.amazon.com/rds/home?region=eu-west-1#take-snapshots:) section of the AWS Console. Simply pick the DB instance you want in the `DB instance` select and give it a `Snapshot name`.
 
-After this run the command above and you should now see an ARN of your backup.
+Alternatively, you can take a snapshot via the AWS CLI:
+
+```sh
+gds-cli aws govuk-${environment?}-admin \
+  aws rds create-db-snapshot \
+    --db-instance-identifier ${db-instance-name} \
+    --db-snapshot-identifier ${your-snapshot-name}
+```
+
+You can check the snapshot progress by running:
+
+```sh
+gds-cli aws govuk-${environment?}-admin \
+  aws rds describe-db-snapshots \
+    --db-snapshot-identifier ${your-snapshot-name} \
+    --query 'DBSnapshots[DBSnapshotArn,Status,PercentProgress]'
+```
+
+Once the snapshot has been created, copy the ARN.
 
 ### 2. Find which database the snapshot was generated by