CV Formatting in the UK: The Rules Recruiters Actually Apply, With Examples
CV formatting is the set of decisions about how your content sits on the page: font, margins, headings, the order of sections, how dates line up and which file you send. In the UK the conventions are settled enough to write down, and the people who know them best are recruitment consultants, because reformatting candidates' CVs onto a house template is part of their job. This guide sets out those rules, shows a before-and-after example of each, and gives you a test for every one so you can check your own CV in a few minutes rather than taking anyone's word for it.
What good CV formatting does (and what it cannot do)
Formatting has one job: to let a reader find the evidence quickly. A hiring manager scanning a pile of applications looks at the top of page one, your current role, your dates and anything that looks like a result. Professional CV formatting puts those things where the eye lands first and keeps everything else out of the way.
What formatting cannot do is make weak content strong. A beautifully set CV with nothing specific in it still says nothing. So treat the rules below as the frame, and spend the time you save on the words inside it. If you are still choosing an overall structure, start with the five CV formats and who each suits, then come back here for the detail.
One distinction worth keeping straight: a CV format is the structure (reverse-chronological, skills-based, academic), a CV layout is how that structure is arranged on the page (one column, sidebar, banner), and CV formatting is the detailed typography and spacing that makes either readable. This guide is about the third.
The UK CV format at a glance: a template you can copy
If you only read one section, read this. These are the defaults a UK recruiter expects, and a CV that follows them will never be marked down for its formatting. Treat the table as a UK format CV template in words: set your document to these values and the formatting is done.
If you would rather see a UK format CV sample than read a table, the UK CV layout examples show the same CV set in six different layouts.
| Element | UK default | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Two sides of A4 for most people; one for school leavers, three for senior or academic roles | Prospects recommends no more than two A4 pages for most applicants |
| Font | A clear font such as Arial, Calibri or Times New Roman, 11pt or larger for body text | The National Careers Service gives exactly this guidance |
| Margins | 2cm to 2.5cm all round | Narrow margins read as cramming; wide ones waste a page |
| Headings | Plain words: Profile, Experience, Education, Skills | Readers and software both look for the standard labels |
| Dates | One format throughout, e.g. Mar 2021 to Present | Mixed formats look careless and hide gaps |
| Personal details | Name, phone, email, town or city, LinkedIn. No date of birth, photo, marital status or nationality | The National Careers Service says not to include age, date of birth, marital status or nationality |
| File | PDF unless the employer or agency asks for Word | PDF keeps the layout you approved |
How to format a CV, section by section
Header. Your name in the largest type on the page, then one line of contact details. Use your town or city rather than your full address; nobody posts anything to you any more. If you have a professional headline, put it under your name in plain words: 'Senior Marketing Manager, retail and consumer brands'.
Profile. Three or four lines, written so that every sentence could be false about somebody else in your field. The National Careers Service describes it as 'a few short lines that sum up who you are and what you hope to do'. Six lines of adjectives is the most common formatting failure we see, because it pushes your current job below the fold.
Experience. Reverse-chronological, with job title, employer, location and dates on every entry. Put the title first or the employer first, but do the same for every role. Under each role, two or three lines of responsibility at most, then the bullets that carry results. Older roles can shrink to one line each; do not delete them, because a missing decade reads as a gap.
Education and qualifications. Qualification, institution and year. If you are experienced, this goes after experience; if you are a graduate, it can go first.
Skills. Plain text, grouped if you have a lot of them. Skill bars and star ratings look designed but mean nothing to a reader and nothing at all to software.
- Example, before: 'Responsible for managing the social media accounts and also doing reporting on a weekly basis to the team.'
- Example, after: 'Ran the brand's four social channels; weekly performance report to the marketing team.'
- Same facts, half the words, and the result sits where a reader looks first.
Fonts, spacing and the details that change on someone else's computer
Most CV formatting problems are invisible to the person who made the document, because they only appear on the reader's machine. A Word file set in a font the recipient does not have will be substituted, line lengths change, and a tidy two-page CV becomes a ragged three. You never see it happen.
The fix is either a font every machine has (Arial and Calibri are safe) or a PDF, which embeds the font. Keep to two type sizes for body and headings, plus one larger size for your name. Use bold for job titles or headings, not both, and never rely on colour alone to show hierarchy, because a printed or greyscale copy loses it.
Spacing does more than people expect. Put a little more space above a heading than below it, so each heading visibly belongs to the text it introduces. Line spacing of about 1.15 reads comfortably at 11pt. If you have to drop below 10pt or squeeze the margins to hit a page count, the content is too long, not the formatting too loose: see how long a CV should be for what to cut.
- Test: send the file to yourself and open it on a phone and on a different computer. If the page count moved, switch to PDF.
- Test: print page one in greyscale. If you cannot see the three things you most want read, the hierarchy is decorative.
Formatting a CV in Word without it falling apart
Word is where most UK CVs are still written, and it is where most formatting breaks. The usual cause is building the layout out of text boxes, tables and manual spacing, so that adding one bullet pushes everything else around.
If you are formatting a CV in Word, use the built-in Heading styles for your section titles, set paragraph spacing in the style rather than pressing Enter twice, and use a right-aligned tab stop for dates instead of spaces. That way the document reflows cleanly when you edit it, and the structure is real rather than drawn. Word's own CV templates (File, then New, then search for CV or resume) are a reasonable starting point; check whether the one you pick uses tables before you commit to it.
Tabular format CVs, where every section is a table cell, are common in some sectors and countries. They look orderly, but tables are a frequent cause of scrambled dates when a CV is read by software, and they make editing painful. If you have one, it is worth rebuilding as plain paragraphs, which is also the honest answer to anyone asking for a European format CV template built from tables. Our guide to ATS-friendly CV templates shows what software actually extracts from different layouts.
CV formatting examples: five fixes recruiters make every day
These are the changes recruitment consultants make most often when they reformat a candidate's CV onto an agency template. Each one is a formatting fix you can make yourself before anyone else does.
- Moving the current role to the top. If your most recent job is below a long profile and a skills block, it moves up. Test: cover everything below the top third of page one; can a stranger name your job title and employer?
- Standardising dates. 'March 21', '2021-present' and '03/2021' in one document become one format, which immediately shows any gap or overlap. Test: list your start and end dates in a single column and read down it.
- Rebuilding two-column layouts as one column. Sidebars do not transfer cleanly between templates, so anything important in a sidebar is at risk. Keep the sidebar for supporting detail only.
- Turning skill bars into text. Four stars for Excel becomes 'Excel (advanced: pivot tables, Power Query)'. More useful, and readable by software.
- Removing the photo and date of birth. Neither is expected in the UK. Prospects is blunt about it: 'Your date of birth is irrelevant', and you do not need a photograph unless the role is acting or modelling.
Special cases: academic CVs, European format and new graduates
Academic CV formatting follows different rules. Length is driven by your record, not a page limit: publications, grants, teaching, conferences and supervision all belong. The formatting priority is consistency in citations (pick one referencing style) and clear section breaks, because readers jump straight to the section they care about.
The European format CV, usually meaning Europass, is the EU's standard CV builder, managed by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and still offered online in 31 languages as of October 2026. It is expected by some EU institutions and programmes. For a UK private-sector job it is not required and its fixed form-like layout tends to read as generic; use it only when an application asks for it.
Graduates and school leavers can put education first, keep to one page if there is not enough to fill two, and should still use the same header, dates and plain headings. A sparse CV formatted properly looks deliberate; a sparse CV stretched to two pages looks padded.
File type: PDF or Word?
Send PDF by default. It is the only format that guarantees the reader sees what you approved, and modern applicant tracking systems read text-based PDFs perfectly well. The exception is a recruitment agency, which may ask for Word because consultants reformat CVs onto their own template before sending them to a client. If they ask, send Word; a locked PDF just means someone retypes it, and retyping introduces errors you will never see.
Whatever you send, make sure the text is real text. Open the PDF and try to select a line with your cursor. If nothing highlights, the file is a picture of a CV and no software can read a word of it. The full comparison is in PDF vs DOCX for CV submissions.
Formatting your CV without starting again
Most people searching for CV formatting free of charge want one of two things: a template to copy, or someone (or something) to apply the formatting for them. The rules above are the first, and they cost nothing. The second is where software helps.
The slow way to reformat a CV is to retype it into a new document. The faster way is to keep the content and change only the formatting, which is exactly what recruitment agencies do with software. ConnectIQ reads your existing PDF or Word CV into a structured record, shows each value next to the place it came from on the original page, and lays it out in any of 57 CV templates. Every preview on that page is a real render rather than a mock-up.
The first conversion is free, with no card, and exports a PDF and a Word version from the same approved content. If you want the wording tidied as well, the AI runs at a level you choose, from formatting-only (no rewrite at all) up to a full rewrite, and every change is shown as a before-and-after you approve. It does not invent jobs, dates or numbers, and where it is unsure of a value it leaves the field blank for you to check rather than guessing.
Frequently asked questions
What should a CV look like in the UK in 2026?
Two sides of A4 for most people, a clear font such as Arial or Calibri at 11pt or larger, a short profile, reverse-chronological experience with dates on every role, then education and skills. No photo, date of birth, marital status or nationality. Send it as a PDF unless the employer or agency asks for Word.
What is the best way to format a CV?
Reverse-chronological order, one consistent date format, plain section headings, and the current role visible in the top third of page one. Keep important content out of headers, footers, text boxes and sidebars, so both people and software read it in the right order.
What is the most common CV formatting mistake?
A long opening profile that pushes the current job below the fold, closely followed by inconsistent dates. Both are easy to test: cover everything below the top third of page one, and list your dates in a single column.
How do I format a CV in Word?
Use Word's Heading styles for section titles, set spacing in the style rather than with extra blank lines, and align dates with a right tab stop instead of spaces or tables. That keeps the layout stable when you edit it. Avoid text boxes, which are often dropped by CV-reading software.
Should a CV include a photo in the UK?
No, unless you are applying for acting or modelling work. Prospects advises that you do not need a photograph, and many employers remove photos before review to reduce bias.
Is a Europass or European format CV acceptable in the UK?
It is acceptable, but rarely the best choice for a UK private-sector job. Use it when an application specifically asks for Europass, such as some EU institutions and programmes; otherwise a standard UK reverse-chronological CV reads better.
Can ChatGPT format my CV?
It can suggest structure and tidy wording, but check every employer, title, date and figure afterwards, because language models sometimes add details that were never in your CV. Formatting is safer done by a tool that keeps your words fixed and only changes the layout.
Try it on a real CV
Put your own CV through it: see the record a parser pulls out, fix what is wrong, and pick a layout that survives the machine. No card required, and every AI change is shown as a before-and-after you approve.
Related guides
ConnectIQ — branded CV formatting for recruitment teams. One free conversion, no card.