What to Include in a CV: A Complete Section-by-Section Guide (UK)

Why Getting Your CV Sections Right Matters

A CV is not just a list of jobs you have held. It is a structured document with distinct sections, each serving a specific purpose. Get the structure wrong — include too much, leave out something important, or put sections in the wrong order — and you risk confusing both the ATS software that screens your application and the recruiter who eventually reads it.

This guide covers every section that belongs on a UK CV, explains what each one should contain, and flags the things you should leave out entirely. Whether you are writing your first CV or updating one you have used for years, this is the reference to work from.

Contact Details

This section sits at the very top of your CV. Keep it simple and professional.

Include:

• Your full name — in a slightly larger font size than the body text.
• Phone number — a mobile number is standard.
• Email address — use a professional-sounding address, not a novelty one. firstname.lastname@gmail.com is fine.
• Location — your city or region is sufficient. A full postal address is no longer expected or necessary.
• LinkedIn profile URL — optional but increasingly common, especially for professional and corporate roles.
• Portfolio or personal website — if relevant to the role (design, development, writing).

Leave out:

• Date of birth or age.
• Marital status.
• Nationality or immigration status.
• National Insurance number.
• Photograph — UK CVs do not include photos. This is different from some European countries.
• Full home address — city or county is enough.

Place your contact details in the main body of the document, not in a header or footer. Many ATS systems strip out header and footer content during parsing, which could mean your phone number and email are lost entirely.

Personal Statement

Your personal statement (also called a professional summary or career profile) is a short paragraph of three to five sentences that introduces you to the reader. It should cover who you are professionally, what your key strengths are, and what type of role you are looking for.

This is the most-read section of your CV after your name and job titles. Tailor it to every application by mirroring the language and priorities of the job description. For detailed guidance and examples, see CV personal statement examples.

A strong personal statement is typically 50 to 150 words. Anything longer starts to compete with your work experience for attention, and anything shorter risks being too vague to add value.

Work Experience

This is the most important section of your CV for anyone with professional experience. List your roles in reverse chronological order — most recent first.

For each role, include:

• Job title — use the official title or a close equivalent that a recruiter would recognise.
• Company name — and optionally a one-line description if the company is not well known.
• Dates of employment — month and year format (e.g. "January 2023 – Present").
• Three to six bullet points — each describing a key responsibility or achievement. Start every bullet with a strong action verb: delivered, managed, designed, reduced, coordinated.

Focus on achievements rather than duties. "Managed the social media accounts" is a duty. "Grew Instagram following from 4,000 to 28,000 in 12 months through a targeted content strategy" is an achievement. Wherever possible, quantify your impact with numbers — percentages, revenue, headcount, time saved.

For older or less relevant roles, reduce the detail to one or two bullet points. Recruiters care most about your recent experience, so allocate space accordingly.

Education

List your qualifications in reverse chronological order. What to include depends on your career stage:

Graduates and early-career candidates:

• Degree title, classification, and university name.
• Relevant modules or dissertation topics (if they align with the role).
• A-levels or equivalent — subjects and grades.
• GCSEs — you can summarise these (e.g. "9 GCSEs including Maths and English at grade 6 or above").

Experienced professionals (5+ years):

• Degree title, classification, and university name.
• You can drop A-levels and GCSEs entirely — they add little value once you have significant work experience.

Do not include primary school. Do not list every module you studied. Keep this section lean and relevant.

Skills

A dedicated skills section helps with ATS keyword matching and gives the recruiter a quick snapshot of your capabilities. Divide your skills into categories if you have enough to warrant it — for example, "Technical Skills" and "Languages."

What to include:

• Technical and software skills relevant to the role — specific tools, platforms, programming languages, methodologies.
• Industry-specific skills — regulatory knowledge, sector frameworks, specialist equipment.
• Language skills — with proficiency level (native, fluent, conversational).
• Certifications and professional memberships — if you do not have a separate section for these.

What to leave out:

• Generic skills like "Microsoft Office" or "email" — these are assumed.
• Soft skills without context — "communication" and "teamwork" on their own add little. Demonstrate these through your work experience bullet points instead.

For a detailed breakdown, see skills to put on a CV.

Additional Sections You May Need

Depending on your background and the role you are targeting, you may want to include one or more of these optional sections:

• Certifications and professional development: List relevant certifications with the issuing body and date. Examples: PRINCE2, AWS Solutions Architect, CIPD Level 5, Google Analytics certification.
• Volunteering: Particularly useful if you are early in your career, returning from a break, or if the volunteering is directly relevant to the role.
• Publications and presentations: Relevant for academic, research, or senior professional roles.
• Awards and honours: Include if they are recognisable and relevant. A company award for "Employee of the Quarter" is worth mentioning. A school prize from fifteen years ago is not.
• Interests and hobbies: This section is optional and should be kept brief. Include it if your interests are genuinely distinctive or relevant — for example, a coding blog if you are applying for a developer role, or competitive sport if the role values discipline and teamwork. Do not list generic hobbies like "reading" or "socialising."

What to Leave Off Your CV Entirely

Some things do not belong on a UK CV under any circumstances:

• "References available on request" — this is outdated and wastes space. Employers will ask for references when they need them.
• A photograph — not expected in the UK and can introduce unconscious bias.
• Salary expectations — this is a conversation for the interview stage, not the CV.
• Reasons for leaving previous jobs — never include these on a CV. If asked, address them in an interview.
• Personal details beyond contact information — no date of birth, marital status, religion, or National Insurance number.
• An objective statement — these are an American convention and are not used on UK CVs. Use a personal statement instead.
• Every job you have ever held — if you have been working for more than ten years, you do not need to list early roles that have no relevance to your current career direction. Summarise or omit them.

Putting It All Together

Here is the recommended order for a standard UK CV:

• 1. Contact details
• 2. Personal statement
• 3. Work experience (reverse chronological)
• 4. Education (reverse chronological)
• 5. Skills
• 6. Certifications (if applicable)
• 7. Additional sections (volunteering, publications, interests — only if relevant)

If you are a recent graduate with limited work experience, you can swap the order of work experience and education, placing education higher up the page. For everyone else, work experience should come first — it is what recruiters spend the most time reading.

Getting all of this right manually takes time, especially when you need to tailor the content for each application. The AI CV Builder structures your CV with all the correct sections, tailors keywords and phrasing to the job description, and ensures ATS compatibility — so you can focus on applying rather than formatting.

Related Reading

• CV Personal Statement Examples: 10 Templates That Work
• Skills to Put on a CV: What Employers Actually Want
• How to Write a CV: The Complete UK Guide
• Best CV Format for the UK Job Market