How to write a CV in the UK
Short answer
How to write a cv uk
A UK CV is a maximum of two pages with no photograph, no date of birth and no marital status. It opens with a four-line personal profile, then lists experience in reverse chronological order with quantified achievements rather than duty descriptions, followed by education, skills and 'references available on request'. Academic CVs are the exception and may run much longer.
What a UK CV contains, in order
This order is conventional and recruiters scan for it. Deviating from it slows them down, which costs you.
- Name and contact details — no full address needed, city and postcode area is enough.
- Personal profile — three or four lines stating what you are and what you are looking for.
- Work experience — reverse chronological, with achievements not duties.
- Education — reverse chronological; grades matter for early-career, less so after five years.
- Skills — technical and language skills with honest proficiency levels.
- References — 'available on request' is sufficient and standard.
What to leave off a UK CV
Including any of these marks you as unfamiliar with UK conventions, and some create legal exposure for the employer.
- Photograph — standard in much of Europe, but avoided in the UK because it invites discrimination claims.
- Date of birth or age.
- Marital status, nationality or religion.
- Full home address — city and partial postcode is enough.
- 'Curriculum Vitae' as a heading — your name is the heading.
- Every job since school. Ten to fifteen years of relevant history is plenty.
Achievements, not duties
This is the single change that most improves a CV. 'Responsible for managing social media accounts' describes a job description. 'Grew Instagram following from 2,400 to 11,000 in eight months, increasing referral traffic 34%' describes you.
Use the formula: action verb + what you did + measurable outcome. If you genuinely cannot quantify something, describe scale — team size, budget, number of clients.
UK CV versus US resume
Length: UK CV is two pages; a US resume is one page for most candidates.
Terminology: 'CV' in the UK means the standard job-application document; in the US, 'CV' means the long academic version and 'resume' is the standard document.
Personal details: both omit photos and dates of birth, but the US is stricter still about anything that could enable discrimination.
Australian CVs run longer again — three to four pages is normal, and referee contact details are commonly included up front rather than withheld.
Getting past the ATS
Most large UK employers screen with applicant tracking software before a human reads anything. Formatting that breaks parsing loses you the application invisibly.
- Submit as .docx or a text-based PDF — never a scanned image or a design tool export with text as paths.
- Standard section headings: 'Work Experience', not 'Where I've Made An Impact'.
- No text inside headers, footers, text boxes, tables or columns — parsers routinely drop them.
- Mirror keywords from the job description where they are genuinely true of you.
- Standard fonts. Decorative typefaces sometimes parse as gibberish.
Frequently asked questions
- How long should a UK CV be?
- Two pages for most roles, one page for early-career applicants with limited experience. Academic CVs are the exception and can run to many pages because they list publications, funding, teaching and conference activity.
- Should I include a photo on a UK CV?
- No. UK employers generally discard CVs with photos because they create discrimination exposure. Photos are conventional in much of continental Europe, which is why the advice differs by country.
- Do I need a different CV for each job?
- You need a different personal profile and a reordered skills section for each job at minimum. A genuinely generic CV reads as generic, and ATS keyword matching penalises it further.
- What is a personal profile?
- Three or four lines at the top stating who you are professionally, your most relevant strength with evidence, and what you are looking for. It replaces the outdated 'objective' statement and is the first thing a recruiter reads.
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