The UK CV: what British recruiters expect

British employers call the document a CV, but it is nothing like the multi-page academic CV of the American system. It is short, plain and factual: closer to a US resume than the word suggests.

The shape of it

	UK CV
Length	2 pages: one reads as thin for anyone with experience
Photo	never
Date of birth	never
Marital status, nationality	never
Opening	a personal statement of 3-4 lines
Order	reverse-chronological

What gets left out, and why

A UK CV carries no photo, no date of birth, no marital status and no nationality.

This is not a stylistic preference. UK equality law makes it risky for employers to hold characteristics like age or ethnicity before a hiring decision, and many recruiters will strip or reject a CV that volunteers them. Supplying a photo does not make you look thorough; it makes you look unfamiliar with the market.

Leave out your full postal address too. A city is enough.

The personal statement

A UK CV opens with three or four lines naming who you are professionally, what you have done, and what you are looking for.

It is not a mission statement. Write it as plainly as you would introduce yourself:

Backend engineer with six years building payment systems in fintech. Led the migration of a monolith to services at a Series B startup. Looking for a senior role with ownership of a platform.

Generic phrasing (hardworking, passionate, team player) is the fastest way to lose the reader. Anyone can claim it, so it carries no information.

Achievements over duties

British recruiters read for outcomes. A line that lists a responsibility says only that you held the job:

Responsible for managing the customer support inbox.

A line that names a result says what happened because you were there:

Cut first-response time from 14 hours to under 2 by restructuring the support rota.

Numbers do the work. Where you have none, describe the change rather than the task.

References

“References available on request” is redundant, everyone assumes it, and it costs you a line. Leave references off entirely and supply them when asked.

Dates and gaps

Months and years are enough: March 2021 - present. UK recruiters are markedly more relaxed about employment gaps than German ones, but a long unexplained break still invites a question. A short factual note closes it.

What tends to give an outsider away

• A photo
• Date of birth or marital status
• One dense page, French-style, where two readable pages are expected
• A designed, multi-column layout in a sector that expects plain text
• “Curriculum Vitae” as the document heading: your name is the heading