How to Write a CV (UK Guide): Structure, Sections and Examples
To write a good UK CV, use a clean reverse-chronological layout on two pages, lead with a short personal statement, and order the sections: contact details, profile, key skills, work experience, education, then extras. Write each role as a few achievement-led bullets that show results, not a list of duties. Tailor the wording to every advert by mirroring its key terms, keep the file ATS-safe (a standard one-column .docx, with no tables, text boxes, headers or footers), and proofread it line by line before you send it.
Here is the part most advice buries. Two things decide whether your CV works: tailoring it to the advert in front of you, and writing achievements with numbers in them. Everything else, the font, the template, the wording of your profile, is housekeeping. Get it tidy and move on. This guide walks through each section, then spends most of its weight on the two that matter, and finishes by showing you how to sanity-check the result. One note on UK norms: you leave off the photo and date of birth, you write in British spelling, and you aim for two pages once you have a few years behind you.
Get the structure and order right
A UK recruiter skims before they read. So the order earns its keep before a single bullet does. Use a reverse-chronological structure, most recent role first, unless you are changing careers or working around large gaps, where a skills-led layout reads better. Keep it to one column so it flows top to bottom in a single pass.
The standard UK section order runs like this.
- Name and contact details at the top: full name, phone, a professional email and a LinkedIn or portfolio link. Leave off the photo, the date of birth, your full home address (town and county is plenty) and your marital status.
- Personal statement or profile: two to four lines on who you are, your strongest relevant experience and what you want next. Tailor it to the role.
- Key skills: a short, scannable list of role-relevant skills and tools, in the language of the advert.
- Work experience: job title, employer, location and dates, then achievement-led bullets.
- Education and qualifications: degrees, professional qualifications and relevant certifications, most recent first.
- Optional extras last. Certifications, languages, volunteering or publications go here if they earn their place. References can be left off, or noted as available on request.
Get the structure right once and you barely think about it again. There is one trap worth naming: anything important parked in a header or footer. A lot of recruiters and applicant tracking systems read the main body cleanly but never see text stranded in those layers, so your name and number can quietly vanish.
Write achievements, not a list of duties
This is the section that gets you the interview, so spend real effort here. The whole game comes down to one question: does each line describe what you achieved, or only what you were responsible for? Duties just restate the job title. Achievements show what changed because you were there.
Three to six bullets per recent role, fewer for the older ones. The reliable pattern is action verb, then task, then result, with a number wherever you honestly have one. Compare these:
- Duty (weak): ‘Responsible for managing the customer support inbox.’
- Achievement (strong): ‘Raised first-response resolution from 60% to 85% across a six-person support team by rewriting the triage workflow.’
The second one gives a recruiter something to remember. Quantify whenever it is honest to. Percentages, money, time saved, team size, customers handled, all of it works. Where a result genuinely won't reduce to a figure, describe the outcome anyway: a process you introduced, a problem you closed off. Open each bullet with a strong verb such as led, built, delivered, reduced or launched, and keep it to a line or two. Cut the filler. ‘Responsible for’, ‘duties included’, and the immortal ‘hard-working team player’ can all go.
Tailor every CV to the advert
This is the other thing that decides it. A generic CV sprayed at thirty roles loses to a tailored one sent to five well-matched ones, every time. Tailoring is not a rewrite from scratch. You adjust the profile, reorder the skills, and re-weight the bullets so your most relevant experience sits near the top.
Work the advert before each application. Read the job advert and the person specification, and note the words that keep coming up. Then mirror that language wherever it is genuinely true of you. If the advert says ‘stakeholder management’, write ‘stakeholder management’, not some tidy synonym, so the human reader and the screening software both register the match. Move your most relevant achievements to the top of each role. Cut whatever doesn't support this particular application. Where your real job title lines up with the advertised one, borrow the advertised wording.
It costs a few minutes per application. Those minutes beat firing off identical copies and wondering at the silence.
Make it ATS-safe, the right length, and error-free
Now the housekeeping. None of this wins the job on its own, but any of it can lose it, so get it right and stop fussing. Most UK employers store and search CVs through software, and a recruiter still has to read yours. Both want a clean, parseable, well-proofed document.
ATS-safe formatting.
- Use a single column. Multi-column designs, tables used for layout, text boxes and graphics get scrambled or skipped when the file is parsed. Major platforms such as Workday and Oracle Taleo are the kind of systems your CV will pass through, and they reward a plain, linear document.
- Pick a common font: Arial, Calibri or Georgia at 10 to 12pt, with plain headings like ‘Work Experience’ and ‘Education’.
- Keep dates in one consistent format, for example ‘Jan 2022 to Mar 2024’.
- Submit a .docx unless the advert asks for a PDF. Both are usually fine; .docx is the safer default for older systems. Name the file like a grown-up: ‘Jane-Smith-CV.docx’.
Length. Two pages is the UK norm once you have a few years of experience. One page suits students, school leavers and recent graduates. Academic, medical and very senior roles can justify more.
Proofing. Use British spelling (organise, not organize), and triple-check names, dates and contact details. Get a second pair of eyes on it, or run it through a checker. For a proper proofreading routine, see our guide to common CV mistakes. A single typo on the first line undoes a lot of good work, and recruiters read it as carelessness rather than bad luck.
| Section | What to include | Common mistake to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Contact details | Name, phone, email, LinkedIn, town and county | Photo, date of birth, full address, marital status |
| Personal statement | Two to four lines, tailored to the role | Generic 'hard-working team player' filler |
| Key skills | Role-relevant skills and tools, in the advert's words | A wall of soft-skill clichés with no evidence |
| Work experience | Title, employer, dates, achievement bullets with numbers | Listing duties instead of results |
| Education | Qualifications, most recent first | School details crowding out experience for senior candidates |
| Format & length | One-column .docx, two pages, British spelling | Tables/text boxes, headers/footers, typos, US spelling |
of recruiters say two pages is the ideal CV length (Reed survey)
Frequently asked questions
How long should a UK CV be?
Two pages once you have a few years behind you, and a Reed survey found 91% of recruiters consider two pages ideal. One page is right for students, school leavers and recent graduates. Academic, medical and very senior roles can run longer, because they need fuller lists of publications or projects. The two-page limit does useful work: if something doesn’t help you win this particular role, it gives up its space to something that does.
What should the order of CV sections be?
For a standard reverse-chronological CV: contact details, then a short personal statement, then key skills, work experience, education, and finally any extras such as certifications, languages or volunteering. Lead with whatever is strongest for the role. Changing careers or working around significant gaps? A skills-led layout that brings your relevant abilities to the top tends to read better.
Should I put a photo or my date of birth on a UK CV?
No. UK CVs leave off the photo, date of birth, marital status and gender. Omitting them is standard practice and helps avoid unconscious bias under the Equality Act 2010. You don’t need your full home address either; town and county is enough. Include your name, phone, a professional email and a LinkedIn or portfolio link.
What is the difference between a duty and an achievement on a CV?
A duty describes what you were responsible for, such as ‘managed the team inbox’. An achievement describes the result you delivered, such as ‘cleared a 200-email backlog and cut average response time from 3 days to 4 hours’. Achievements show impact and stand out far more. Use the pattern action verb plus task plus result, and add a number wherever you honestly can. This is the single highest-return change you can make to a CV.
Should I send my CV as a Word document or a PDF?
Both are widely accepted. A .docx is the safer default, because some older applicant tracking systems parse Word files more reliably, so use it unless the advert specifically asks for a PDF. Either way, keep the layout simple: one column, no tables or text boxes used for layout, and name the file clearly, for example ‘Jane-Smith-CV.docx’.
How do I make my CV ATS-friendly?
Use a single column with standard headings like ‘Work Experience’ and ‘Education’, a common font at 10 to 12pt, and consistent date formats. Avoid tables for layout, text boxes, images, and key information in headers or footers, which platforms such as Workday and Oracle Taleo can miss when they parse the file. Then mirror the real keywords from the advert so the software and the recruiter both register the match. You can check how your CV scores before you apply.