How to Write a CV: The Complete UK Guide (2026)

What Is a CV and Why Does It Matter?

A CV — short for curriculum vitae — is a document that summarises your professional experience, education, skills, and achievements. In the UK, a CV is the standard document used when applying for jobs, whether you are a recent graduate applying through UCAS or a senior professional targeting a FTSE 100 board position. Unlike the American résumé, the UK CV is typically two pages long and follows a set of well-established conventions that employers expect you to follow.

Your CV is almost always the first impression a hiring manager or recruiter has of you. In many cases, it is also filtered by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) before any human reads it. Getting your CV right is not optional — it is the foundation of every successful job search.

Before You Start: Gather Your Information

Before you open a blank document, collect the raw materials you will need:

• Employment history: Job titles, company names, locations, dates of employment, and your key responsibilities and achievements in each role.
• Education: Degrees, A-levels, GCSEs (if relevant), professional qualifications, certifications, and any relevant courses or training programmes.
• Skills: Both hard skills (software, languages, technical abilities) and soft skills (leadership, communication, problem-solving). Be specific — "proficient in Python" is more useful than "good with computers."
• Achievements: Quantified results wherever possible. Revenue generated, costs saved, efficiency improvements, team sizes managed, projects delivered — numbers make your CV credible.

Step 1: Choose the Right Format

For the vast majority of UK job seekers, the reverse-chronological format is the best choice. This means listing your most recent role first and working backwards. It is the format that UK recruiters are most familiar with, and it is the easiest for ATS software to parse correctly.

If you are changing careers, a combination format — which leads with a skills summary before moving into your chronological work history — can help you highlight transferable skills. A purely functional (skills-based) CV is rarely recommended in the UK, as many recruiters view it with suspicion.

Step 2: Write Your Contact Details

Place your contact information at the very top of your CV, but not inside a header or text box (ATS systems often cannot read these). Include:

• Your full name
• Phone number
• Professional email address (firstname.lastname@email.com, not partyking99@hotmail.com)
• City or town (a full postal address is no longer necessary)
• LinkedIn profile URL (optional, but increasingly expected)

Do not include your date of birth, marital status, nationality, or a photograph. UK equality legislation means employers should not be considering this information, and including it looks outdated.

Step 3: Write a Compelling Personal Statement

Your personal statement (also called a professional summary) sits directly below your contact details. It should be three to four lines long and do three things: state who you are professionally, highlight your most relevant experience, and mention a headline achievement. Tailor this section for every application.

Example: "Results-driven marketing manager with eight years' experience in B2B SaaS, specialising in demand generation and content strategy. Led a cross-functional team of 12 to deliver a campaign programme that generated £2.4M in pipeline within six months. Seeking a senior marketing role where I can drive measurable commercial growth."

Step 4: Detail Your Work Experience

This is the core of your CV. For each role, include:

• Job title
• Company name and location
• Dates of employment (month and year)
• Four to six bullet points describing your key responsibilities and achievements

Each bullet point should ideally follow this formula: action verb + what you did + measurable result. For example: "Reduced customer churn by 18% by redesigning the onboarding programme and implementing automated follow-up sequences." This structure demonstrates impact, not just activity.

For your most recent role, include more detail (five to six bullets). For older roles, three to four bullets is sufficient. If you have more than 15 years of experience, you can summarise very early roles in a single line each.

Step 5: List Your Education

For experienced professionals, the education section can be brief — degree title, institution, and year of graduation. If you graduated with honours, include your classification (e.g., "BSc (Hons) Computer Science, 2:1, University of Manchester, 2018").

For graduates and those early in their careers, this section carries more weight. Include relevant modules, your dissertation topic if it is relevant to the role, and any academic achievements such as prizes or scholarships. A-level results are worth including if you have fewer than five years of professional experience; after that, they become less relevant.

Step 6: Add Your Skills Section

A well-structured skills section helps both ATS software and human readers quickly assess your capabilities. Organise your skills into categories if you have many:

• Technical: Python, SQL, Tableau, Salesforce, Google Analytics
• Languages: French (fluent), Spanish (conversational)
• Certifications: PRINCE2 Practitioner, Google Ads Certified, CIPD Level 5

Place the skills most relevant to the role you are applying for at the top. If the job description mentions "stakeholder management" three times, that skill should be prominent on your CV.

Formatting Rules for UK CVs

Follow these formatting conventions to ensure your CV looks professional and parses correctly through ATS:

• Length: Two A4 pages for most professionals. One page if you have fewer than five years of experience.
• Font: Arial, Calibri, or Garamond at 10.5–11pt for body text.
• Layout: Single-column. No tables, text boxes, or multi-column designs.
• Margins: 2–2.5cm on all sides.
• File format: .docx or a text-based PDF unless the employer specifies otherwise.
• Spelling: British English throughout — organise, analyse, programme, colour.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Writing "Curriculum Vitae" or "CV" as a title. The recruiter knows what it is. Use your name as the heading instead.
• Including "References available upon request." This is assumed and wastes space.
• Using paragraphs instead of bullet points for your work experience. Bullet points are faster to scan and easier for ATS to parse.
• Listing duties instead of achievements. "Responsible for managing a budget" tells the recruiter nothing about how well you did it. "Managed a £500K departmental budget, delivering all projects 8% under budget" does.
• Sending the same CV for every role. A generic CV will be outscored by a tailored one every time, both by ATS and by human reviewers.

How to Tailor Quickly

The most effective CVs are tailored to each specific role — matching the language, keywords, and priorities of the job description. Doing this manually takes 20–30 minutes per application. If you are applying to multiple roles, an AI CV Builder can handle the tailoring automatically: rewriting your bullet points to mirror the employer's language, optimising for ATS keywords, and formatting the output cleanly. It takes under 60 seconds and ensures every application you send is properly aligned with the role.

Whether you tailor manually or use a tool, the principle is the same: a CV written for a specific job will always outperform a generic one. Take the time to get it right, and you will see the difference in your interview rate.

Related Reading

• Best CV Format for the UK Job Market
• CV Personal Statement Examples — 10 Templates That Work
• How to Write a Cover Letter UK
• Business Analyst CV Template
• Teacher CV Template