How to Write a CV
A good UK CV lists your contact details, a short personal statement, your work experience in reverse chronological order, your education, and your skills, all on one or two pages. Write it in plain, specific language, put your most relevant experience first, and adjust it for each job you apply for.
Start with the structure
Before you write a word, decide on the order of your sections. Most UK employers expect contact details at the top, followed by a personal statement, then work experience, education, and skills, in that order.
If you have little or no paid work experience, move education above work experience so the strongest section comes first. The order should always put your best material near the top of the page, since a reader will spend the most attention on whatever they see first.
It helps to think of your CV as answering one question in each section: who you are, what you have done, what you have learned, and what you can offer. Keeping that question in mind stops sections drifting into repetition.
Contact details
Include your name, phone number, email address and general location, such as your town or city. A full postal address is not necessary, and neither is a second phone number or a link to every social media profile you hold.
Leave out your date of birth, a photo, and your marital status. These are not needed for a UK CV and are best avoided under the Equality Act 2010, which is designed to stop hiring decisions being influenced by age, appearance or personal status.
Check that your email address sounds professional. An old, informal address made up for school or gaming is worth replacing with a simple one based on your name before you start applying for jobs.
Write the personal statement
This is a short paragraph, usually three to four sentences, that sums up who you are professionally and what you are looking for. Mention your area of experience, one or two strengths, and the type of role you want, so a reader has context before moving on to the detail below.
Write it in the third person without pronouns, for example 'Organised administrator with two years' experience in a busy office environment' rather than 'I am an organised administrator'. Keep it specific to the job you are applying for rather than generic.
Avoid opening with a cliché such as 'hard-working team player' with nothing behind it. A statement that names a real strength, backed up elsewhere on the CV, reads as far more convincing than a string of generic adjectives.
List your work experience
Work backwards from your most recent job. For each role, give the job title, employer name, location and dates, followed by four or five bullet points describing what you did and achieved.
Start each bullet with a strong verb such as 'managed', 'organised' or 'resolved', and be specific about tasks and outcomes rather than writing a vague job description. A bullet like 'Resolved customer complaints and updated records accordingly' tells a reader far more than 'Responsible for customer service'.
Give more space to recent and relevant roles, and compress older or less relevant ones into a line or two. This keeps the CV focused on what matters most to the job you are applying for now.
Add education and skills
List your qualifications with the most recent first, including the institution, qualification and grade if it is favourable. Add a skills section that mixes practical, job-specific skills with a few personal strengths relevant to the role.
Keep this section focused. A long, unfiltered list of every skill you have ever used is less useful to a reader than a short, relevant one drawn from the job advert and your own genuine strengths.
If you have any relevant training, courses or certificates, list them here too, particularly if they relate directly to the job you are applying for.
Proofread and format
Use a clean, consistent layout with clear headings and enough white space to make the page easy to scan. Stick to one or two fonts and avoid tables, columns or graphics that can confuse both readers and software.
Read your CV aloud, or ask someone else to read it, before you send it. Small errors in spelling or dates are easy to miss when you have been staring at the same document for hours, and they can distract a reader from otherwise strong content.
Save your finished CV as a PDF so the layout stays consistent wherever it is opened, and give the file a sensible name that includes your own name rather than a generic label like 'CV final version 2'.
