UK CV Format (2026): Layout, Personal Statement and What to Leave Out

Keep personal details to what an employer needs to contact you. A UK recruiter expects:

• Your full name as the heading. You don't need to write "Curriculum Vitae" or "CV" at the top.
• Phone number and email address. Use a professional address based on your name.
• Location: town or city, and optionally the first half of your postcode ("Leeds, LS6") to show you're within commuting distance.
• A LinkedIn or portfolio link, if it's up to date.

What to leave out, and why

Leave out	Why
Photo	Not the UK norm; it invites bias, and many recruiters prefer CVs without one
Date of birth or age	Age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010
Marital status, children	Employers must not ask about these
Nationality, religion, health	Not relevant to whether you can do the job
National Insurance number	Only needed once you're hired, and an identity-theft risk

The government's National Careers Service tells UK job seekers to leave out age, date of birth, marital status and nationality. GOV.UK's recruitment guidance for employers explains why: employers must not ask candidates about protected characteristics, or whether they're married or have children. Date of birth belongs on a separate equality monitoring form, which the people selecting candidates shouldn't see, unless the job has a genuine age requirement.

The Equality Act 2010 protects nine characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Leaving them off your CV keeps the reader focused on your skills.

Two sides of A4 is the standard for experienced candidates. Prospects, the UK graduate careers service run by Jisc, recommends no more than two A4 pages, with three acceptable for senior roles or long technical careers. Students, school leavers and most graduates fit comfortably on one page.

Formatting that works for UK recruiters and for an applicant tracking system (ATS, the software many employers use to store, search and filter applications):

1. One column and clear headings: "Personal statement", "Work experience", "Education", "Skills". Tables, text boxes and icons can scramble when an ATS reads the file.
2. A readable font. The National Careers Service suggests fonts such as Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman at 11 point or larger.
3. Reverse-chronological order within each section, newest first.
4. Dates as month and year, for example "Sep 2021 – Present". In the UK "03/04/2022" means 3 April, so all-number dates confuse international readers.
5. British English throughout: organise, analyse, programme, licence (noun), colleague, CV.
6. Achievement bullets, not duty lists. Recruiters skim, so lead with the result. The National Careers Service suggests describing each job in about two to three lines.

Weak: Responsible for managing the store's stock.

Strong: Cut stock write-offs by 18% in a year by introducing weekly cycle counts across a 40,000-line store.

Save the file as "Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf" so a recruiter can find it again. If you want a clean layout without fighting a word processor, the EZProCV templates are single-column, ATS-friendly and export a text-based PDF.

The personal statement (also called a profile) is the three to five lines under your contact details that say who you are, what you offer and what you want. It's the first thing a UK recruiter reads, so write it last and tailor it to each job.

A simple formula: who you are + your strongest evidence + what you want next. Most UK CVs drop "I" and write in a clipped first person, so every line starts with substance.

Graduate: Chemistry graduate (2:1, University of Leeds) with a placement year at a contract manufacturer, running stability testing to GMP standards. Confident with HPLC, LIMS and technical report writing. Seeking a graduate analytical chemist role in pharmaceuticals.

Career changer: Former secondary school teacher moving into learning and development, with eight years of designing training, coaching new staff and presenting to groups of up to 200. Recently completed a CIPD Level 5 qualification in L&D. Looking for an L&D advisor role where classroom skills transfer directly.

Experienced: Chartered accountant (ICAEW) with ten years in audit and group reporting, most recently leading month-end close for a £120m-turnover retailer. Strong IFRS, consolidation and systems-implementation background. Targeting a financial controller role in the North West.

Avoid clichés such as "hard-working team player" unless the rest of the sentence proves it. For job-specific wording, our resume examples include summaries that work as UK personal statements once you switch to British spelling.

Most UK applications go through one of four routes:

• Job boards and LinkedIn. The government's Find a job service, plus commercial boards such as Indeed, Reed and Totaljobs. Many let you upload a CV and apply in a few clicks.
• Recruitment agencies. Agencies handle a large share of UK hiring, especially temporary, contract, office and IT work. They often reformat your CV before sending it to clients, so give them a clean Word or PDF file.
• Employer careers sites. Large employers typically run applications through an ATS such as Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle or iCIMS. Keep the layout simple and use the advert's own words for skills. Our guide to making your resume ATS-friendly covers the details, and it applies equally to UK CVs.
• Application forms. The public sector often uses its own forms. Civil Service Jobs assesses candidates against Success Profiles and may ask for a CV, a personal statement or behaviour examples. NHS Jobs usually asks for supporting information written against the person specification. Graduate schemes at large employers often combine an online form with tests.

Even when a form replaces the CV, keep an up-to-date CV ready. You'll copy from it, and agencies and LinkedIn recruiters will still ask for one.

If the advert asks for one, always send it. If it doesn't, a short cover letter still helps when you're changing careers, relocating or applying directly to a smaller employer. Keep it to one page and make it specific to the job.

UK letter conventions differ slightly from US ones:

• Address a named person when you can: "Dear Ms Patel". British English drops the full stop after Mr, Ms and Dr.
• Sign off "Yours sincerely" when you've used their name, and "Yours faithfully" after "Dear Sir or Madam". "Kind regards" is fine in an email.
• Mention where you saw the role and, if it matters, your right to work or relocation plans.
• Many online forms have a "supporting statement" box instead. Treat it as a cover letter written against the person specification.

Opening that works: I'm applying for the Operations Coordinator role advertised on Find a job. In three years at a Birmingham logistics firm I've scheduled 60 drivers a day and cut missed delivery slots by a quarter, and I'd like to bring that to your Coventry depot.

Our guide on how to write a cover letter that gets read walks through structure and openings, and you can start from a cover letter template.

UK employers must check every new hire's right to work before employment starts (GOV.UK: right to work checks). Visa holders usually prove their status online with a share code rather than paper documents. If you don't yet have permission to work, most work routes, such as the Skilled Worker visa, need a job offer from an employer the Home Office has licensed to sponsor visas.

On your CV:

• Add one plain line only if it helps: "Right to work: Graduate visa, valid to June 2028" or "Will require Skilled Worker sponsorship". British and Irish citizens don't need to write anything.
• Show where you are and your plans: "Currently in Lagos, Nigeria; relocating to London from January 2027".
• Use an international phone format (+44, or your own country code) and mention your time zone in the cover letter if interview times could be awkward.
• Translate qualifications into terms a UK reader understands, for example "Bachelor of Engineering (four-year degree), University of Nairobi, Kenya".
• Strip out other countries' norms. If your CV was built for the Gulf, remove the photo, date of birth and nationality fields before applying in the UK.

Visa rules change often. As of October 2026, check current routes on GOV.UK visas and immigration before you apply. This page is general guidance, not immigration advice.