Preparing a UK CV and LinkedIn profile

Katerina Galkina · EN · 07/10/2026

Begin with the vacancy criteria

Save the advertisement and identify the main duties, essential criteria and desirable skills. Put one example from your experience beside each essential requirement. This shows what your CV needs to explain and where there is a genuine experience gap.

The official CV guide ↗ recommends tailoring and a clear layout. You do not need to rewrite your entire history for every application. Change the emphasis, ordering of relevant experience and short introduction. Use the industry's names for tools where you genuinely know how to use them.

CV content and structure

Include contact details, a short professional introduction, experience, education and relevant skills. For recent roles, explain the work and its outcome: what changed because of your contribution, at what scale and using which methods. If exact figures are unavailable, describe a verifiable result without inventing percentages.

Do not include your date of birth, marital status or nationality. Do not publish referees' contact details without consent. A relocation-related gap can be explained in a neutral sentence; a detailed family history is unnecessary. For an overseas employer, a short sector description can help when the company's name will be unfamiliar to a British reader.

LinkedIn should support the same experience

Check your headline, About section, employment dates, location and project links. The LinkedIn profile guide ↗ explains how to present experience and achievements. Your profile and CV can differ in length, but important facts should agree.

A LinkedIn photo is a separate profile element; do not automatically add it to a conventional CV. Review visibility and notification settings before major changes if your search is confidential. A public professional profile does not require your home address or immigration documents.

Before submitting

Use a readable file in the employer's requested format. Check that text copies correctly from the PDF, links open and section headings are clear. Elaborate graphics and tables can make processing harder. There is no universal secret ATS score that guarantees selection.

Ask another person to check clarity and English, then verify every date and claim yourself. Keep the version used for each application. The government's Work Hub ↗ includes a CV tool for getting started; review any suggested text and tie it to your actual experience.