Our simple CV builder keeps layouts tidy

A simple CV gives UK employers the facts they look for under headings they already know: how to reach you, what you offer, where you've worked, what you've studied and what you can do. For most jobs that means five headed sections on two sides at most, in a layout an employer can scan in a single pass. With a builder handling the layout, your job is choosing what goes in and what stays out. If your CV runs long, our quick answers cover how to trim it.

Which headings make up a standard UK CV?

Five headings cover most UK CVs, each under a name an employer will recognise:

• Contact details: your name across the top, then a mobile, an email and the town where you're based. A full postal address is optional.
• Personal statement, also called a profile or summary: a short paragraph, around 50 to 100 words, that sums up your experience and says what you're applying for.
• Work history: your jobs from the latest back, each with the employer's name, dates down to the month and three to five bullet points for recent roles.
• Education: your most recent qualification first, with its grade or class, and earlier school results in a single short line.
• Skills: six to eight you can back up from your jobs, from the software you use to any languages you speak.

Most people with work experience put their latest job near the top, under the statement or a short list of key skills. School leavers and new graduates often lead with education instead, since it's their strongest evidence. How to write a CV covers each heading in more depth, and our breakdown of hard and soft skills helps you choose the six to eight worth listing.

Where do interests fit on a simple CV?

On a single line at the end, and only when they show a skill or quality the job asks for. Captaining a Sunday league side suggests leadership, running a club's social media shows marketing skills and helping at a food bank shows you can deal calmly with the public. A line like "reading, travel and socialising" tells an employer nothing new, and it takes space a result could use. One or two specific interests are plenty, and a CV that already fills two sides can leave them out.

What should I leave off a simple CV?

Anything that adds length or clutter without helping an employer judge your work. These are the usual cuts:

• Skill bars, star ratings, icons and text boxes. They say little about what you can do, and screening software can misread them.
• The same duties written out under several similar jobs. Describe them once under the latest role, then use each earlier job's lines for what was different there.
• Short online courses and in-house training, unless the advert names them or they led to a recognised qualification.
• Your reasons for leaving each job and what you were paid.
• A photo, your date of birth or a "Curriculum Vitae" title, none of which a UK employer usually expects. "References available on request" can go too, since most employers take it as read; just keep a list ready to send when one asks.

Cutting these frees room for a result that matters.

What does a simple CV layout look like?

A single column that reads from top to bottom, with bold headings and clear space between sections, so an employer can find any part in seconds. Bullet points of a line or two each let the eye run down a job quickly. If you like colour, use one accent, such as a rule under your name, and keep the body text dark.

Employers now receive far more applications per vacancy (the research below has the figures), so a CV that's quick to scan helps. If you're weighing up a side column, our article on two-column layouts covers when it works and when it gets in the way. The designs in our gallery are all ATS-friendly and set the spacing for you.

Let Rocket Resume keep your CV simple

Rocket Resume's CV builder takes you through one section at a time: your contact details, your jobs, your education, your skills and then your personal statement, which appears on your CV as a professional summary, with optional extra sections at the end. Give it a job title and you'll get AI-enhanced expert lines to trim and keep. You can move any section up or down, for example to put your work history above your skills. The features below show how the spacing stays even as your CV grows. It takes four steps:

1. Pick your experience level first, then an uncluttered design you can swap without losing any text.
2. Add your jobs from the latest back, picking from the expert lines each title brings up.
3. Reword each line you keep until it's short and accurate, and move a section higher if it's your strongest.
4. Read the preview through one last time before you download your CV.

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