CV for the UK and Ireland: Format, References and What to Leave Out

The British CV is defined as much by what it leaves out as by what it contains. Applicants from Europe, the Middle East and Asia often send a document that would be perfect at home and reads as unprofessional in London — not because the experience is weak, but because it carries personal details that UK employers are legally careful to avoid seeing.

What to leave out — and why

• No photo. UK and Irish employers avoid them because of equality law; a photo can cause your application to be set aside to protect the process.
• No date of birth, no age. The Equality Act 2010 makes age a protected characteristic.
• No marital status, nationality written as a personal attribute, religion or number of children.
• No full home address — city and region are enough, plus a phone number and a professional email.
• No signature, no personal ID numbers, no salary history.

One exception: your right to work. State it plainly if it is an advantage — British citizen, Irish citizen, settled status, or a visa with its type and expiry. Employers must check it, so making it easy to find helps you.

The expected structure

1. Name, city, phone, email, LinkedIn — in the body of the page, not the header.
2. Personal statement: 3–4 lines, the British equivalent of a profile, written for the specific role.
3. Work experience in reverse-chronological order: job title, employer, location, dates (month and year), and 3–5 achievement bullets.
4. Education: degree, classification (2:1, First), university and year. Classification matters in the UK and is often filtered on.
5. Skills and certifications.
6. References: the line References available on request is now considered filler — simply omit the section unless the advert asks.

Example personal statement

Operations manager with 7 years in third-party logistics, currently running a 40-person warehouse operation in the Midlands with full P&L responsibility. Reduced pick error rates by a third and delivered a WMS migration without service interruption. Looking for a regional operations role in a growing e-commerce business.

Details that mark out a local application

• British spelling: organised, analysed, programme, centre, specialise. Running a US spellchecker on a UK CV is a visible tell.
• Dates as month and year (March 2022 – present), not 03/2022.
• Money and scale in pounds, with UK-recognised scope: regions, counties, named client sectors.
• Qualifications translated into UK terms where possible — state the equivalence of a foreign degree rather than leaving the reader to guess.
• Grades written the British way: a 2:1 means something; a GPA usually does not.
• The word CV, not resume. In the UK and Ireland, CV is the standard term for a two-page professional document.

Ireland: nearly the same, with two differences

Irish CVs follow the same no-photo, no-age conventions. Two practical differences: references are more often requested up front, so be ready with two named referees, and your right to work in the EU is worth stating explicitly if you hold it, since it separates you from applicants who would need sponsorship.

In the UK, the fastest way to look like an outsider is not your English. It is a photo and a date of birth.