UK CV format: length, layout and what to leave off

The usual length for a UK CV is two sides of A4. That is room enough for a profile, a full work history and your education, and short enough for a recruiter to read properly. Going over rarely helps. The extra page is usually older roles described at the same length as recent ones, and a reader skims past those anyway.

There are sensible exceptions. If you are a school leaver or a recent graduate, one side is often enough, and a full, focused page reads better than two thin ones. Academic CVs, which list publications, grants and teaching, and some medical and research CVs run much longer, because their readers expect the full record.

• Set the page size to A4. A CV that started from a US template may still be on Letter size, which prints and converts differently.
• Use a plain font at a readable size, with margins wide enough that the page does not look crammed.
• Fit the content to the length, not the other way round. Shrinking the font to squeeze in a third page defeats the point.

UK recruiters read a lot of CVs, and they look for things in a familiar order. Follow it and nobody has to hunt for your current role or your qualifications. The order below suits most people with some work history. Early in your career, education can come before experience, because it is your strongest evidence.

1. Your name and contact details: phone, email, town or city, and a LinkedIn profile if you keep it up to date.
2. A personal profile: three or four lines on who you are, what you do best and the kind of role you want.
3. Key skills, if a short list helps: the skills most relevant to the roles you apply for.
4. Work experience, most recent first: job title, employer, location and dates, then a few bullets on what you achieved.
5. Education and qualifications, most recent first, including professional certifications.
6. Anything else that genuinely adds something, such as volunteering, languages or a relevant interest.

Some people call the profile a personal statement. Either name is fine, as long as it is short, specific and written for the kind of role you want next.

Several things that are normal on CVs in other countries are left off in the UK. Including them will not usually rule you out, but they mark the CV as written for somewhere else, and they use space you could spend on evidence.

• A photo. UK employers do not expect one, and many would rather not see one.
• Your date of birth, age, marital status, nationality or religion. None is expected, and several relate to characteristics protected under the Equality Act 2010, which many employers prefer to keep out of the decision entirely.
• Your full address. Your town or city is enough, and it tells a recruiter whether the commute works.
• The words "Curriculum Vitae" or "CV" as a heading. Your name is the heading.
• "References available on request". Employers assume it, and they will ask when they are ready.
• Your salary history, unless the advert asks for it.

One thing that can be worth adding is your right to work. If your education or recent experience is outside the UK, a single line such as "Full right to work in the UK" answers a question a recruiter may not think to ask, and saves them wondering.

Small details tell a reader whether a CV was written for them. British spelling is the first: organise, programme, colour, and licence as a noun. If your CV began life in American English, a spellchecker set to English (UK) catches most of it, but read it through as well, because it will not catch every one.

• Dates as month and year, such as March 2021 to June 2024, in the same format all the way down.
• Your degree with its classification, such as BSc Computer Science (2:1).
• A-levels and GCSEs early in your career, summarised briefly, for example "9 GCSEs including English and Maths". Later on they can shrink to a line or go.
• Qualifications from outside the UK described plainly, with the UK equivalent if you know it.

Write your bullets without the "I": "Led a team of six" rather than "I led a team of six". It is the convention, and it saves space for what you did.

Unless the advert asks for something specific, send your CV as a Word document (.docx) or as a PDF exported from one. Both are widely accepted. If you send a PDF, make sure it is a real text PDF, the kind you can select and copy words from, not a scan or a photo of a page. A scanned CV can reach an applicant tracking system with no readable text in it at all.

Name the file so it makes sense in a recruiter's downloads folder: your name and "CV", plus the role if you are tailoring. "Jane-Smith-CV.pdf" is easier to find than "CV final v3.pdf". Keep the layout simple too, with a single column, standard headings and no text boxes or tables, so the software reads your experience in the right order.