How to Write a UK-Style CV as an Indian Professional - LSBUK
Home
Foundation DiplomaLevel 3 DiplomaLevel 4 DiplomaLevel 5 DiplomaLevel 6 DiplomaAll Programmes →
Mastering LeadershipInnovation & TransformationPractical LeadershipAll Executive →
Diploma in AI for LeadersUnderstanding AIAI StrategyAll AI Courses →
General EnglishBusiness EnglishIELTS PreparationAll Language →
AboutReviewsEnquire Now

Management

How to Write a UK-Style CV as an Indian Professional

The format UK recruiters expect, what to remove from an Indian CV, and how to evidence your experience properly.

Person editing a CV document on a laptop

A UK CV is short, plain and achievement-led. Many strong candidates from India are filtered out for format reasons alone, which is a fixable problem.

What to remove

UK convention - and in some cases anti-discrimination practice - means these do not belong on a UK CV:

  • Photograph
  • Date of birth or age
  • Marital status, gender, religion, caste
  • Father's or spouse's name
  • Full home address (city and country is enough)
  • Passport number
  • "Curriculum Vitae" as a heading
  • Declarations and signatures
  • Objective statements written in the third person

The structure that works

  1. Name and contact details - phone with country code, professional email, LinkedIn.
  2. A three-to-four line professional summary, tailored to the specific role.
  3. Work experience, most recent first: employer, one line of context if the company is not internationally known, role title (with the UK-legible equivalent if the original is misleading), dates, and four to six achievement bullets.
  4. Education, with the UK equivalence of the qualification and grade.
  5. Skills, relevant to the advert only.
  6. Additional - certifications, publications, languages, right-to-work status.

Writing the bullets

Start with a verb, end with a result. "Led a team of six through a warehouse management system migration, cutting order processing time by 22% and completing two weeks ahead of schedule" tells a recruiter everything. "Responsible for warehouse operations" tells them nothing.

Aim for numbers in at least half your bullets: team size, budget, volume, percentage, timeframe.

Length and format

Two pages maximum. One page if you have under five years' experience. Plain formatting - no columns, tables, text boxes, graphics or headers, because applicant tracking systems mis-parse them. Standard section headings. A clean PDF named Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf.

Say the right-to-work position plainly

One line near the top: your current status, whether you need sponsorship, and your earliest start date. It saves everyone time and reads as professionalism.

Tailor it every time

Mirror the advert's vocabulary where it is honestly true of you. A generic CV sent to fifty employers performs worse than ten tailored ones.

Next step

See how do I prove my experience to UK employers from India, or explore our Communication Skills for Business course. Contact us for guidance.