Most CV advice is written by people who have never had to read two hundred of them on a Monday morning. This guide is written by people who have. It covers what a UK CV should look like in 2026, how long it should be, what order things go in, and the things that get a CV put on the wrong pile before anyone has read a full sentence.

If you want the short version: two pages, no photo, a three-line personal statement that says what you are, achievements with numbers in them, and nothing that makes the reader work. The rest of this guide explains why, and how to get there.

What a UK CV needs to include

A UK CV has a settled structure, and recruiters read it in a settled order. Deviate from it and you cost the reader time, which costs you the interview. The sections, in order:

1. Name and contact details. Name, phone, email, town or city, LinkedIn URL. No full postal address, no date of birth, no marital status, no photo.
2. Personal statement. Three sentences, no more. What you are, what you have done at that level, what you are looking for. There is a separate guide on the formula.
3. Key achievements or skills. Optional, and only if you can fill it with specifics. Four to six bullets with numbers in them beats a list of adjectives.
4. Experience. Reverse chronological. Employer, job title, dates (month and year), then three to six bullets per role for recent jobs, fewer for older ones.
5. Education and qualifications. Highest first. Once you are ten years into a career, this goes after experience and takes two lines.
6. Additional. Languages, professional memberships, relevant certifications. Not hobbies, unless they are directly relevant to the role.

References go at the end as a single line, “References available on request”, or not at all. Nobody checks references before interview, so listing them takes space from things that get you one.

How long should a CV be in the UK?

Two pages. That is the UK convention and it holds at every level from graduate to director. One page is fine if you are early in your career and can fill it well. Three pages is acceptable for senior academic, medical or scientific roles where publications and clinical experience need listing, and for some C-suite CVs where the career spans multiple companies and a board bio would otherwise be needed. For everyone else, three pages signals that you cannot edit.

Length is a symptom, not the problem. CVs run long because people describe responsibilities instead of results, keep every role at equal length regardless of how long ago it was, and include things that are true but not relevant. Fix those three and two pages is comfortable.

What a hiring manager actually does with your CV

They do not read it. Not at first. A hiring manager or recruiter with a stack of applications scans the top third of the first page for three things: what you do, what level you do it at, and whether you have done it somewhere they recognise. If those three land, they read on. If they do not, you are a maybe, and maybes do not get interviews.

That scan takes somewhere between ten and twenty seconds. It is why the personal statement matters more than any other section, why your current job title and employer need to be visible without scrolling, and why a design-heavy CV with a sidebar and icons usually loses: the eye has to search for the three facts instead of landing on them.

Write for the scan first and the read second. That means the first page carries everything that gets you shortlisted, and the second page carries everything that gets you through the interview.

CV layout: what works and what does not

Single column. Black text on white. One typeface, 10.5 to 11.5 point for body text, bold for headings and job titles. Margins of about 2 cm. Clear section headings. Bullets for achievements, short paragraphs for context. That is it, and it is what every CV that has ever got someone a senior role has looked like.

Things to avoid, in rough order of how much damage they do:

• Two-column layouts. They split the reader’s attention, and most applicant tracking systems read them in the wrong order.
• Skill bars and star ratings. “Excel: 4 stars” tells the reader nothing and makes them doubt the rest.
• Tables for layout. They break when the file is opened in a different version of Word and they confuse parsing software.
• Headers and footers for contact details. Many systems ignore them entirely. Put contact details in the body.
• Colour. A single accent colour for headings is fine. More than that is a design portfolio, not a CV.

Writing the experience section

This is where most CVs lose. The pattern we see in the majority of applications is a list of duties copied from the job description: “Responsible for managing a team”, “Involved in the delivery of projects”. Everyone who held the job was responsible for those things. The reader wants to know what happened because you held it.

For each recent role, write one line of context (the size of the team, budget, territory or scope) and then three to six achievement bullets. Each bullet follows the same shape: what you did, how, and what changed as a result, with a number where you can get one.

Weak: “Managed the regional sales team and improved performance.”

Strong: “Took over a regional team of 9 that was 22% behind target; restructured territories and introduced weekly pipeline reviews. Team finished the year 6% over target and two of the nine were promoted.”

Numbers do not have to be revenue. Headcount, budget, time saved, error rates, customer scores, projects delivered, anything that can be counted. If you cannot put a number on a bullet, ask whether it is an achievement at all.

Roles older than ten years get a job title, employer, dates and at most one line. Nobody is hiring you for what you did in 2012.

What to leave out of a UK CV

• A photo. UK employers do not expect one and many will reject a CV that has one, for equality reasons. Save it for LinkedIn.
• Date of birth, nationality, marital status. None of it is relevant and all of it invites bias.
• Full address. Town or city is enough.
• “Curriculum Vitae” as a heading. They know what it is.
• Every job you have ever had. Weekend jobs from university go once you have a career.
• Reasons for leaving. That is an interview conversation.
• Salary history or expectations. Never on the CV.
• Hobbies. Unless they demonstrate something the role needs. “Reading and travel” demonstrates nothing.
• Soft-skill adjectives. “Dynamic”, “passionate”, “results-driven”. Show the result instead.

Tailoring your CV for each application

You do not need to rewrite your CV for every job. You need a strong master CV and a fifteen-minute routine for each application:

1. Read the job advert and pick out the five things they say they want most.
2. Adjust the personal statement so the first sentence mirrors how they describe the role.
3. Reorder the achievement bullets in your most recent two roles so the ones that match those five things come first.
4. Check the job title you are targeting appears somewhere in the first third of page one, in your own words.
5. Save it as a PDF with a sensible file name: Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf.

ATS and keywords: what matters and what is a myth

Applicant tracking systems do not reject CVs. People do. What the software does is parse your CV into fields so a recruiter can search and filter. Where it goes wrong is on layout: columns, tables, text boxes and headers all confuse the parser, and a CV that parses badly is a CV that does not show up in searches. A clean single-column Word document or PDF parses fine.

Keyword matching is real but overstated. Use the actual job title and the actual names of the tools, systems or methods the advert asks for, in plain text, because those are what recruiters search on. Do not stuff a skills section with every term you can think of; it reads as padding to the human who opens the file.

Before you send it

• Does the top third of page one say what you are, at what level, and where?
• Is every bullet in your last two roles an outcome, not a duty?
• Is there a number in at least half of them?
• Is it two pages, single column, one typeface?
• Has someone else read it for typos? Spellcheck does not catch “manger”.
• Is the file a PDF named with your name?

Frequently asked questions

Should a UK CV have a photo?

No. It is not expected, it is often removed by recruiters before a CV is passed on, and it can get an application set aside on equality grounds.

Is a one-page CV acceptable in the UK?

Yes, for graduates and people in the first few years of a career. Beyond that, one page usually means achievements have been cut to make it fit, which is the wrong trade.

Should I send a PDF or a Word document?

PDF unless the application specifically asks for Word. A PDF looks the same on every screen. Keep a Word version for agencies who want to add their own branding.

How far back should a CV go?

Ten to fifteen years in detail. Earlier roles can be summarised in one or two lines, or grouped under a single “Earlier career” heading.

What is the difference between a CV and a resume?

In the UK, nothing in practice; CV is simply the word used. In the US, a resume is the standard one-to-two page document and a CV is a longer academic record. If you are applying in the UK, call it a CV and keep it to two pages.