The Short Answer
Put 8 to 15 skills on your CV, chosen from the job advert and true for you. Most should be hard skills: tools, software, techniques, qualifications and languages. Show soft skills such as leadership and communication through your experience bullet points rather than listing them on their own. Group skills if you have a lot, describe your level in words (not bars or stars), and make sure every skill you list is backed up somewhere else on the CV.
Why Your Skills Section Matters
Your skills section is one of the quickest places for a recruiter to check whether you match the job, and applicant tracking systems use it alongside the rest of your CV to match you against the advert's keywords. A focused, relevant list makes the match obvious. A long, generic list ("hard-working, team player, Microsoft Word") hides the skills that matter.
Hard Skills, Soft Skills and Transferable Skills
Hard skills are teachable and testable: Python, PRINCE2, financial modelling, Adobe Photoshop, forklift operation, phlebotomy, Spanish. These belong in your skills section.
Soft skills are how you work: leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving. Everyone claims them, so they mean little as single words. Prove them in your experience instead. "Led a cross-functional team of 12 through a system migration" is far stronger than "Leadership" in a list.
Transferable skills are skills that carry across jobs and industries, whether hard (budgeting, data analysis) or soft (negotiation, training others). They're especially important if you're changing career.
One exception: on a first CV with little experience, listing a few soft skills is fine, as long as your education, activities or interests back them up. See how to write your first CV for examples.
How Many Skills Should You List?
Between 8 and 15 is the sweet spot for most CVs. Fewer than 8 can look thin; more than 20 looks unfocused and buries the important ones. Every skill should pass this test: "Would I be comfortable being asked about this, or tested on it, in an interview?"
How to Choose the Right Skills
- Read 5 to 10 job adverts for the role you want, not just the one you're applying for.
- List every skill they mention, including tools and qualifications.
- Rank them by how often they appear. The skills that come up in most adverts are the ones employers care about.
- Match them against what you can genuinely do. Only include skills you have.
- Add the specifics: the exact software, systems, certifications and methods used in your field.
- Re-order for each application, putting the skills this advert mentions first.
To speed up step 2, Mojo's skills guides by role list the hard skills, soft skills, tools and certifications employers ask for in common UK jobs. For example, see the skills for a customer service advisor or a software developer.
Where to Put Your Skills Section
- Experienced candidates: after work experience. Your experience is your strongest evidence, so it comes first.
- Graduates and school leavers: after education, and before or after experience depending on which is stronger.
- Career changers and technical roles: consider a short "Key skills" block near the top, under your profile, so the reader sees the relevant skills before the job titles from your old field.
How to Format Your Skills
- Use a simple list or a few grouped lines. Clean and easy to scan, for people and software.
- Group by category if you have more than about ten: "Software", "Technical", "Languages", "Certifications".
- Describe your level in words where it helps: "Excel (advanced: pivot tables, Power Query)", "French (conversational)", "Python (pandas, 2 years)".
- Don't use skill bars, stars or percentages. "Photoshop: 80%" means nothing to a reader, and software can't read graphics.
- Keep it compact: a few lines, not half a page.
Here's how a grouped skills section looks for a fictional data analyst:
Skills
Analysis: SQL (advanced), Python (pandas, matplotlib), Excel (Power Query, pivot tables), A/B testing
Reporting: Power BI, Looker Studio, writing summaries for non-technical teams
Data: data cleaning, data modelling, GDPR-compliant handling of customer data
And for a fictional office administrator:
Skills
Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Excel, Teams, SharePoint) | Diary management for multiple managers | Invoicing in Xero | Minute-taking | Touch typing (60 wpm) | Handling confidential information
Languages, Licences and Certifications
These are some of the most useful skills on a CV because they're specific and checkable. List them clearly:
- Languages: give a level in plain words: native, fluent, professional working proficiency, conversational or basic. If you have a formal level (for example B2 on the Common European Framework), add it.
- Licences: a full UK driving licence matters for many field, trade and care roles. Include it if the job involves travel.
- Certifications: name, awarding body and year: "PRINCE2 Foundation (2025)", "CSCS Green Card", "Level 2 Food Hygiene (2026)". If you have several, give them their own section.
Prove Your Skills in Your Experience
The skills section is a summary. The proof lives in your work history. For each important skill, try to have at least one bullet point that shows you using it:
Skill listed: "Stakeholder management"
Weak bullet: "Responsible for stakeholder management."
Strong bullet: "Kept 14 department heads aligned through a six-month CRM rollout with fortnightly updates and a shared decision log, delivering on time with no change requests after launch."
This is also where soft skills get their credibility. Communication, teamwork and leadership show up naturally in bullet points like the one above.
Skills Examples by Job Type
- Customer service and retail: handling complaints, CRM systems (such as Zendesk or Salesforce), till and cash handling, stock control, de-escalation, product knowledge.
- Admin and office: Microsoft 365, diary management, data entry, minute-taking, invoicing, document management.
- Healthcare: clinical observations, medication administration, infection control, patient record systems, safeguarding, specific procedures you're trained in.
- Trades and construction: specific qualifications (for example the 18th Edition wiring regulations for electricians), testing and inspection, reading drawings, health and safety cards, a driving licence.
- IT and software: languages and frameworks, cloud platforms, version control, testing, the specific tools in the advert.
- Marketing: SEO, paid search and social, email platforms, analytics tools, copywriting, content management systems.
Skills to Leave Off
- Basic software everyone is assumed to have: "Microsoft Word", "email", "internet". Exception: entry-level and admin roles where the advert specifically asks for them.
- Adjectives pretending to be skills: "hard-working", "motivated", "passionate". Show them instead.
- Outdated technology no longer used in your field.
- Skills you'd struggle to demonstrate if asked.
- "References available on request": not a skill, and on a full CV it can go entirely. See references on a CV.
Skills, Keywords and Applicant Tracking Systems
Applicant tracking systems compare the words in your CV with the job advert. Use the advert's exact wording where it's true for you ("stakeholder engagement" rather than a synonym), spell out acronyms once ("Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)"), and make sure key skills appear in your experience as well as your skills list. Our ATS guide explains how these systems read your CV.
Skills Section Checklist
- 8 to 15 skills, most of them hard skills
- Chosen from real job adverts and true for you
- The skills this advert mentions first, using its wording
- Grouped into categories if there are more than about ten
- Levels described in words, with no bars, stars or percentages
- Each important skill backed up by a bullet point in your experience
- No generic adjectives or assumed basics
Check Your Skills
Want to know which skills your CV is missing for a particular role? Check your CV free: add the job you want and you'll get a CV Score out of 100, including a score for your skills, and the fixes to make first. Inside a free account, CV Mojo's Skills Gap Analysis compares your CV with a target role and shows what's missing.