What to Leave Off Your CV in the UK

By Aaron Bell, Careers Writer at AI Job Answers · Updated 2026-04-26

A UK CV is judged in seconds, not minutes. Most CVs lose attention not because they are missing something, but because they are crowded with bullets that no longer earn the space they take up. The fastest way to improve a CV is usually deletion, not addition.

What to leave off your CV in the UK: the cut list

If you only have ten minutes, cut these first:

  1. Photos and date of birth
  2. Full street address
  3. Marital status, nationality (unless visa-relevant), and personal pronouns by themselves on a line
  4. "Hardworking team player" style summary fluff
  5. Bullets that describe duties instead of outcomes
  6. Generic skills like "Microsoft Word", "email", or "internet"
  7. Hobbies that signal nothing about the role
  8. Jobs from 15+ years ago in industries you have since left
  9. GCSEs and A-level grades, once you have several years of relevant experience
  10. The line "references on request"

Each of these takes space that could carry evidence of fit instead. The point is not to make the CV shorter for its own sake — it is to make page one work harder.

Personal details that no longer belong on a UK CV

UK hiring norms have moved on from the personal block at the top of a CV. Recruiters do not need (and often actively avoid) certain personal details to stay clear of bias risk.

What to keep: your name, a phone number, an email address, your town and region, and a LinkedIn URL. That is enough.

What to cut:

  • a photograph (UK convention is text-only; a photo introduces bias and adds nothing to fit)
  • date of birth or age
  • marital status, gender, or nationality (unless directly relevant to a visa-sensitive role)
  • full street address — town and region are enough
  • religious or political affiliations unless they are core to the role

If you are applying through a system that asks for some of this separately for equal-opportunities monitoring, fill it in there. Do not put it back on the CV.

The career summary words that say nothing

The "personal statement" or summary line at the top is the most read part of a CV. It is also where most candidates write the weakest sentence on the page.

Phrases to cut:

  • hardworking team player
  • self-starter
  • passionate about delivering results
  • excellent communicator
  • attention to detail
  • looking for a new challenge

These say nothing because every other candidate writes them too. They cost you the most valuable line on the document.

A summary that earns its space is a sentence you could not honestly cut and paste onto someone else's CV.

Before: Hardworking and detail-oriented professional with strong communication skills, seeking a challenging new role.

After: Senior product designer with seven years in fintech, currently leading the redesign of a payments dashboard used by 40k SMEs across the UK.

The second sentence is harder to write because it requires you to be specific. That is also why it works.

Bullets that describe duties instead of outcomes

This is the single biggest source of CV bloat. Bullets that read like a job description are filler — they tell the reader what the job was, not what you did with it.

A duty bullet:

Responsible for managing the social media accounts and posting weekly updates.

An outcome bullet:

Grew Instagram followers from 4k to 22k in 12 months by switching to a weekly behind-the-scenes format; CTR on linked posts up 3x.

The shape is the same, but one tells the reader nothing they could not have guessed from the job title, and the other proves you were good at it. The fix is mechanical: every bullet needs a number, a result, a comparison, or a name. If a bullet has none of those, it is taking the place of one that should. The rewriting pattern is covered in detail in how to turn CV duties into achievements.

Generic skills lists every candidate already has

A skills section is useful when it is short and specific to the role. It becomes wallpaper when it lists tools the recruiter assumes you can already use.

Cut these from a UK CV in 2026:

  • Microsoft Office, Word, PowerPoint, Excel (basic)
  • Email, internet, typing
  • Operating systems unless they are sector-specific
  • "Strong analytical skills" or other adjective-led skills

Keep these where relevant:

  • domain-specific tools the role names in the JD (Salesforce, Tableau, Figma, AWS, R)
  • languages with proficiency levels
  • certifications that are still current
  • industry-relevant frameworks (PRINCE2, Scrum, ITIL)

The test is whether a recruiter screening for this exact role would scan the line and tick a box. If not, the line is space you could give back.

Old jobs and education detail that have earned their cut

Career history should taper, not stay equally detailed forever. The CV is supposed to make a case for the role you are applying for now, not document every job you have held.

Compress or cut:

  • jobs over 10 to 15 years old, especially if you have similar but more recent ones
  • university modules and dissertation titles, once you have several years of work
  • GCSE grades, once you are past your first or second job
  • A-level grades, once you are mid-career
  • school name and location, in most cases
  • training certificates that have expired

If an older role still carries evidence the new role needs, keep the bullet and trim something else instead. The rule is not "older = cut"; it is "older + weaker = cut".

When you have rebuilt the CV around the role you actually want, how to optimise your CV for any job is the next step — it walks through the keyword and section choices that take a tightened CV from "clean" to "shortlist-ready".

Lines that exist out of habit

Some lines persist on UK CVs purely because the templates we copied from had them. They earn no space:

  • "References on request" — recruiters assume this. Removing it gains a clean line on page one.
  • "Curriculum Vitae" written across the top — your name is the heading.
  • A page-numbered footer ("Page 1 of 2") on a two-page CV — modern PDFs handle this.
  • A long table of contents or list of headings at the top.
  • "Date written" or "version 3" labels near your name.
  • Bullets that end in "etc." — write the specific thing or do not write it.

None of these are catastrophic on their own. Together they pull attention away from the parts of the CV that should be doing the work.

If the slow part of your application loop is deciding what to cut for a specific role, AI Job Answers' CV Evaluation reads your CV against the job description and flags which lines are taking up space without earning it. Free, no signup, runs in your browser.

Common questions

Should I include a photo on my UK CV?
No. UK hiring practice is to leave photos off CVs to reduce bias risk for the employer. Some European countries still expect a photo, but the UK convention is firmly text-only. The exception is acting, modelling, or presenting work, where a headshot is part of the application.
Do I need to put my full address on a CV in 2026?
No. Town and region (for example, Manchester, North West) is enough. Recruiters care about commute or right-to-work, not your house number. A full street address is also a small data-protection risk for a document you may share widely.
Is it still OK to write 'references on request'?
It is OK in the sense that nobody will reject you for it, but it adds nothing — recruiters assume references are available and ask for them when they want them. Removing the line frees a couple of lines for evidence that earns its space.
How far back should a UK CV go?
Usually 10 to 15 years of working detail, with anything earlier compressed to a single line or dropped. The exception is when an older role is genuinely the strongest evidence for the job you are applying for, in which case keep the bullet and trim something else instead.