Sample of CV for a Job Application (UK Examples 2026)

Most CV advice tells you what to do in the abstract. A sample of CV for a job application shows you what it actually looks like. The examples below follow the UK standard format, cover four common applicant profiles, and annotate the choices that matter.

Sample of CV for a job application: the UK standard structure

A UK job application CV has six sections, in this order:

1. Name and contact details — name, phone, professional email, town and region, LinkedIn URL
2. Professional summary — three to four sentences on who you are, your strongest evidence, and what you are looking for
3. Work experience — reverse chronological (most recent role first), with four to six bullets per role
4. Education — degree, institution, year, grade (if 2:1 or above); A-levels if you are early career
5. Skills — a short, specific, role-relevant list
6. Optional extras — certifications, languages, voluntary work, if they add evidence

That order is not aesthetic preference. Recruiters scan in a fixed path: contact details, summary, most recent role, education, skills. Disrupt the path and you slow down their yes/no decision. Full section guidance is in the UK CV format 2026 guide.

Sample professional summary for a job application CV

The summary is the most-read section on any CV. It is also where most candidates write the vaguest sentences.

A sample professional summary for a mid-career candidate:

Marketing manager with eight years in consumer goods, currently heading the brand team at a health and wellness company. Led the launch of three own-brand product lines, growing category revenue 34% in two years. Looking for a senior brand role in a B2C business with a strong digital presence.

A sample for an administrator applying to a co-ordinator role:

Office administrator with four years supporting operations in professional services. Managed diaries, travel logistics, and supplier relationships for a team of 22 across two sites. Looking for a co-ordinator or office manager role in London.

The test for any summary: could this sentence be pasted onto a colleague's CV without changing a word? If yes, it is not doing its job. Every number, sector name, and scope detail makes the sentence uniquely yours.

Sample work experience bullets for a UK CV

Each role in the work experience section follows this structure: a header line (job title, employer, dates) then four to six bullets. The bullet pattern is action verb, what you did, what it produced.

Senior Account Manager — Hartfield Media — Apr 2022–present

• Grew a portfolio of 12 accounts from £1.4m to £2.1m ARR over 18 months by introducing quarterly strategic reviews
• Reduced churn from 14% to 6% by identifying at-risk accounts early and launching a dedicated retention programme
• Closed the agency's largest single contract (£320k) through a six-month partnership negotiation with a public-sector client

Junior Developer — Orion Software — Jul 2020–Mar 2022

• Built a React component library used across four internal products, cutting new-feature development time by roughly a third
• Fixed 43 bugs flagged during a QA audit in the six weeks ahead of a major client release
• Migrated two legacy PHP services to a Node.js microservice architecture, working alongside a senior engineer

Duty bullets — "Responsible for managing accounts", "Helped with projects" — are the most common reason a CV gets screened out before a human reads it. The first word of each bullet should be a past-tense verb that names a change you made. The rest of the sentence should prove it mattered. Turning CV duties into achievements walks through the rewrite pattern with before-and-after examples.

Sample education section for a UK CV

For a candidate with several years of experience:

BA Economics (2:1), University of Leeds, 2019
A-levels: Maths (A), Economics (A), History (B)

For a recent graduate:

BEng Mechanical Engineering (First Class), University of Manchester, 2024
Dissertation: thermal modelling of EV battery packs under rapid charge conditions
Relevant modules: Finite Element Analysis, Thermodynamics, CAD (SolidWorks)

The dissertation and modules stay on the graduate CV because education is still the strongest evidence. Once you have three or more years of relevant work history, drop them — the work experience section carries the case.

Sample skills section for a UK job application CV

A skills section that works is short and specific. A skills section that does not work lists tools every office worker is assumed to have.

Tools: Salesforce, HubSpot, Excel (pivot tables, Power Query), Canva
Frameworks: Agile, Scrum
Languages: English (native), German (intermediate, B2)

Cut from any sample CV: Microsoft Word, email, internet access, "strong analytical skills", "attention to detail". The test is whether a recruiter screening specifically for this role would tick a box when they see the line. If not, the line is taking space from something that would.

Sample CV for a job application with no experience

For a graduate or career-starter, the section order shifts: education moves to second place, below the summary. Work experience comes third, drawing on placements, part-time jobs, and internships.

Even at entry level, the bullet format stays the same:

Barista — Caffe Loco — Jun 2023–present
Consistently hit the weekly upsell target (average £2.40 add-on per transaction) across peak service of 80+ covers per shift

That bullet is about a cafe job, but it proves commercial awareness, reliability, and target attainment — all transferable. Vague alternatives ("Served customers in a friendly manner") prove nothing.

How to tailor your sample CV for each job application

A sample CV is a starting point. Submitting it unchanged to every role is one of the most common reasons candidates get no response despite a solid background.

Two passes before you send:

1. Keyword pass: read the job description and check whether its key phrases appear in your summary and skills section. ATS systems score on keyword match. If the JD says "project co-ordination" and your CV says "task management", the system may score you lower even if the work is the same.

2. Evidence pass: check whether your top three bullets answer what this specific role is actually looking for. A CV that leads with retail revenue growth is right for a commercial role; the same CV may need to lead with a different bullet for an operations role.

What to leave off your CV covers the corresponding cut pass — removing the lines that take up space without earning it — which is often faster than adding new content.

If you want a quick read on how your current CV lines up against a specific role, paste both into AI Job Answers' CV Evaluation. It reads the CV and the job description together and flags where the match is thin and where you have strong evidence the recruiter may be missing.