UK CV format: rules for a British CV that reads local
No photo, two A4 pages, British spelling and day-first dates: the UK CV format explained from official guidance, with headings in English and Welsh.
UK CV format: rules for a British CV that reads local
A CV can be flawless in structure and still read as imported the moment a London recruiter sees organize instead of organise. The UK CV is as photo-free as the American resume, but it lives on A4, spells the British way, writes its dates day-first — and gets at most two pages to make its case. This guide covers the full rule set; for how the UK compares with ten other markets, start from our resume format by country guide.
The rules in brief
- Photo: no — discouraged.
- Date of birth, age, salary history: omit all three.
- Length: maximum 2 pages.
- Page size: A4.
- Spelling: British — organise, specialise, programme.
- Dates:
Mar 2021 – Present, or month-year numerics; never US month-first. - Wording: it is a CV, not a resume.
- File:
Jordan_Avery_CV_GB_EN.pdf.
Photo and personal data: keep it off
Official guidance from nidirect (Northern Ireland), myjobscotland and the UK Civil Service is consistent: no photo, no date of birth, no age, no salary history. A UK CV is judged on evidence of what you did, in at most two A4 pages — the personal block that continental European CVs sometimes carry has no place on it.
That makes the UK one of the easiest markets to prepare for if your master document is already data-minimized, and one of the most jarring if it was written for Switzerland or Germany. Strip the photo, strip the birth date, and let the experience section carry the application. City and country are enough for location; the full street address earns nothing.
Salary history deserves its own mention because it trips up candidates arriving from markets where forms routinely ask for it: on a UK CV, it is simply left off. If an employer wants salary expectations, they will ask in the process — not on page one of your CV.
Spelling: the one-letter tell
One detail quietly marks a CV as imported faster than any layout choice: American spelling. A UK document organises, specialises and lists programmes. If your master resume was written for the US market, the conversion needs more than a paper-size change — every -ize, every program, every labor and center needs the British form, in headings and bullets alike.
This matters more than it looks. A recruiter reading fifty CVs does not consciously deduct points for specialized — but the document stops reading as local, and "reads local" is exactly what a well-formatted CV buys you. That is a wording change, not a paper-size toggle: in our builder you switch the British forms in the text yourself, and the paid AI tailoring, keyed to the job's language, matches the spelling for you when you tailor to a UK role.
Structure and section headings
The skeleton is the standard reverse-chronological one: contact details, a short professional summary, work experience, education, skills, and further sections only where they earn their two-page share. The headings a UK recruiter expects — with the Welsh equivalents for Cymraeg applications:
| Language | Standard headings |
|---|---|
| English | Contact details · Professional summary · Work experience · Education · Skills · Languages · Certifications · References |
| Cymraeg | Manylion cyswllt · Proffil proffesiynol · Profiad gwaith · Addysg · Sgiliau · Ieithoedd · Tystysgrifau · Geirdaon |
Length, page, dates and the file name
Two pages, hard cap. The official guidance is unanimous on this. A UK CV that runs to three pages does not read as thorough; it reads as unedited. If the content does not fit, cut the oldest and least relevant material — do not shrink the font or the margins.
A4, not Letter. The UK prints on A4. A US Letter export will not disqualify you, but it reformats margins and page breaks the moment the file meets a UK printer, and it is one more "prepared elsewhere" signal alongside the spelling.
Dates, day-first. UK numeric order puts the day first: 14/03/2026. On the CV itself, the safe forms are Mar 2021 – Present or month-year numerics like 03/2021 – 06/2024. What you must never do is import US month-first numbers — 03/04/2025 means April 3 to a British reader and March 4 to an American one, and there is no way to tell which the writer meant. One convention, kept throughout, on the same line as each role.
File name. Jordan_Avery_CV_GB_EN.pdf — ASCII, underscores, and the word CV. Naming the file "Resume" is the file-system version of writing organize.
Cover letter and references
The same official guidance that covers CVs covers cover letters — nidirect treats the two as a pair — so plan on a short, tailored letter whenever the vacancy or form gives it a place, and skip it only when the application explicitly has no slot for one.
For references, keep it lean: the References heading exists in the standard UK section set, but the employer's instructions decide what goes under it. Follow what the vacancy asks rather than pre-loading referee details the process has not requested — the vacancy and the application form always override the default.
ATS notes for the UK market
UK employers — from retail chains to the Civil Service's online application system — screen at volume, so the machine-readability baseline applies in full:
- One text column, standard headings from the table above, normal reading order.
- Name, phone, email, city and links in the document body, not only in a header or footer some parsers skip.
- Selectable text; no scanned pages, no skill-rating graphics, no tables as layout.
- A text-based PDF unless the portal asks for DOCX.
- One date convention throughout.
If your CV fails any of these, fix that before polishing the spelling — the full mechanics are in our ATS optimization guide.
British quirks worth knowing
- "CV" is the word everywhere. In the UK, CV does not mean the long academic document it means in the US — it is the standard name for the two-page application document. The reverse trap catches Britons applying westward: see our US resume format guide for the American rules.
- Cymraeg is a real application language. Welsh-language vacancies exist, particularly in the public sector in Wales, and the section headings above have standard Welsh forms.
- Public-sector applications play by their own forms. Civil Service and many public-body applications run through structured online forms with their own requirements; when a form asks for something specific, the form wins over any general CV rule.
- Data-minimization travels well. A correctly built UK CV — no photo, no birth date, two pages — is already 90 percent of a correct Canadian or "English CV for Europe" document; usually only page size, spelling and date order change.
Sources
Common questions
Do I need a photo on a UK CV?
No. Official UK guidance discourages photos on CVs. Leave it off, along with your date of birth and age — a UK CV is judged on evidence of what you did, not on personal data.
How long should a UK CV be?
Two A4 pages at most. Official guidance from nidirect, myjobscotland and the Civil Service is consistent on the cap — if it does not fit in two pages, cut it, do not shrink the font.
Should I include salary history on a UK CV?
No. Omit salary history, along with date of birth and age. None of it helps the screening, and official UK guidance says to leave it off.
Is it CV or resume in the UK?
CV. The word resume marks the document as American — as does US spelling such as organize or specialize. A UK CV organises, specialises and lists programmes.
Should a UK CV use A4 or US Letter?
A4. US Letter is the North American page size; a Letter-sized file printed in the UK gets reformatted margins and page breaks, and signals a document prepared for another market.
What date format should a UK CV use?
Mar 2021 – Present, or month-year numerics such as 03/2021 – 06/2024. Never use US month-first numeric dates — 03/04/2025 means April 3 to a UK reader and March 4 to an American one.
