The short answer
Hobbies and interests are optional on a UK CV. Include them when they add something your experience doesn't: evidence of a skill the job needs, proof of commitment, or a real talking point. Keep them to one or two specific lines at the end of the CV. Leave them off when you're short of space or when all you'd write is "reading, travel and socialising".
When hobbies and interests help
An interests section earns its place in four situations:
- You don't have much work experience. On a first CV, a student CV or an apprenticeship application, your interests are often your best evidence of reliability, teamwork and responsibility. The National Careers Service gives the example of captaining a sports team as evidence of leadership and organisation.
- The interest is relevant to the job. Building and repairing bikes for a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. Running a book club for a library assistant role. Coding side projects for a developer job.
- It shows a skill or achievement you can't show elsewhere. Grade 8 piano shows years of practice. Completing a marathon shows planning and persistence. Being a qualified football referee shows calm decision-making under pressure.
- It makes you memorable. A distinctive, genuine interest can give the interviewer an easy opening question and help them remember you afterwards.
When to leave them off
- Your CV is already two full pages of relevant experience. Interests are the first thing to cut.
- They're generic. "Reading, music, travel, spending time with friends" describes nearly everyone and uses a line you could spend on something useful.
- They're not true or not current. If you list chess and haven't played since Year 8, you may be asked about it in an interview.
- They could work against you for this job without adding any evidence. More on that below.
How to write hobbies and interests well
The difference between a weak and a strong interests section is almost always detail. Use these four rules:
- Be specific. Not "sport" but "Play hockey for a local club's second team".
- Add evidence: how often, how long, what level, what you achieved. "Training twice a week for six years."
- Show the skill without labelling it. "Organise the club's summer tournament for 12 teams" shows organisation. You don't need to add "(shows organisational skills)".
- Keep it short. One or two lines in total, or up to three short bullet points on a first CV.
Put it at the end of your CV under a simple heading: "Interests" or "Interests and activities". If an activity is substantial (volunteering every week, a role with responsibility, a coaching qualification), it may belong in your experience section instead, where it carries more weight.
Interests, skills or experience? What goes where
The same activity can belong in different sections depending on how much responsibility it involved. A quick way to decide:
- Experience section: regular commitments where someone relied on you. Volunteering every week, coaching a junior team, being treasurer of a society, helping in a family business. These show the same qualities as a job, so give them a heading line and bullet points.
- Skills section: abilities you can use at work, wherever you learned them. Languages, software, first aid, a driving licence, touch typing.
- Interests section: what you do for enjoyment that says something about you: sport, music, making things, reading, a long-term project.
If you've listed the same thing twice ("Volunteering" under interests and "Food bank volunteer" under experience), keep the experience entry and delete the interest.
Good and weak examples
These examples are illustrative. Use them to see the pattern, then write about what you actually do.
Sport and fitness
Weak: "Football, gym, running."
Stronger: "Football: captain of a Sunday league team for two seasons, organising lineups and lifts for 16 players. Completed the Great North Run in 2026, raising £420 for a local hospice."
Music, drama and creative interests
Weak: "Music and art."
Stronger: "Play bass guitar in a covers band that performs at local pubs and weddings around six times a year; I manage our bookings and social media. Grade 6 piano."
Reading and writing
Weak: "Reading."
Stronger: "Run a monthly book club of 10 members at my local library and write short reviews for its newsletter."
Gaming
Gaming can be a genuine asset when it's described in terms of what you did, especially for tech, design or community roles:
Weak: "Gaming."
Stronger: "Moderate a 3,000-member Discord server for a gaming community: writing rules, settling disputes and onboarding new moderators."
Volunteering and community
Weak: "Helping others."
Stronger: "Volunteer at my local food bank every other Saturday, sorting donations and helping visitors with their parcels."
Making, fixing and tech
Weak: "Computers and technology."
Stronger: "Built a Raspberry Pi weather station that posts readings to a website I made; code on GitHub. Fix and resell second-hand laptops for friends and family."
Cooking and baking
Weak: "Cooking."
Stronger: "Bake celebration cakes to order for friends and family; ran a stall at our school's Christmas fair that raised £140 for charity."
Languages and travel
Weak: "Travelling and learning about other cultures."
Stronger: "Learning Japanese (completed a beginner's evening course in 2026). Spent three months travelling in South America on a budget I saved for over a year, planning the whole route myself."
Uniformed groups and awards
Weak: "Duke of Edinburgh."
Stronger: "Completed the Duke of Edinburgh's Silver Award: volunteered weekly at a care home, learned to cook, and led navigation on a three-day expedition."
Match your interests to the job
If you have several interests, choose the one or two that connect most closely with the job you're applying for:
- Engineering or trades apprenticeship: building, fixing, modifying, DIY projects, Lego Technic or model making, motorsport. Our apprenticeship CV guide shows how to use these.
- Teaching, childcare and youth work: coaching, Scouts or Guides leadership, tutoring, holiday clubs. The teaching assistant and primary school teacher CV examples show how education roles present this kind of experience.
- Software and data: side projects, open-source contributions, hackathons, building tools for a club or society. The junior software developer CV example shows projects used as evidence.
- Marketing and media: running a social account, a blog, a podcast or a YouTube channel, with honest numbers.
- Healthcare and care: volunteering with older people, first aid qualifications, caring responsibilities.
- Retail and hospitality: team sports, events, anything with customers, cooking and baking.
Interests to think twice about
Some interests are personal, and it's entirely your choice whether to include them. Political activity, religious involvement and some personal causes fall into this group. In the UK, employers must not discriminate against you because of your religion or belief and other protected characteristics (see discrimination: your rights on GOV.UK), but you can't control a reader's unconscious assumptions.
A useful test: does it add evidence the job needs? "Youth leader at my church, running weekly sessions for 25 teenagers" shows leadership and safeguarding awareness, and many people include it with pride. "Member of a political party" on its own adds nothing to most applications. You can also describe the role rather than the organisation if you prefer.
Leave off anything that suggests risk to the employer without adding evidence: heavy nights out, gambling, or hobbies you'd be uncomfortable discussing with an interviewer.
How it looks on the page
On a first CV, where interests are doing real work, two or three short bullet points are fine:
Interests
- Netball: play for the school team and a local club, training twice a week
- Baking: ran a cake stall at the school Christmas fair that raised £140 for charity
- Learning British Sign Language (Level 1 course, evenings)
On an experienced CV, one line at the very end is plenty:
Interests
Sunday league football (club secretary for three seasons), restoring old bikes, and learning Spanish.
Both versions are specific, short and true, which is all an interests section needs to be.
Do employers actually read it?
Some do and some don't. A recruiter screening hundreds of applications for an experienced role may skip straight past the interests. A small business owner hiring a Saturday assistant, or an interviewer looking for an icebreaker, may read every word. That's why the sensible approach is low-risk: keep it short enough that it costs you nothing if it's skipped, and specific enough that it helps if it's read.
Be ready to talk about them
Interviewers often use the interests section as a warm-up question ("I see you referee football. How did you get into that?"). Have a short, genuine answer ready that links back to the job if it can: what it taught you, what you're proud of, what you're working on now. If you can't talk about an interest for a minute with enthusiasm, take it off.
Hobbies and interests checklist
- Included only if they add evidence, relevance or a real talking point
- One or two lines (up to three short bullets on a first CV)
- Specific: what, how often, what level, what you achieved
- True and current
- The most job-relevant interests first
- Substantial activities moved into the experience section
- Nothing you'd be uncomfortable discussing at interview
Writing a first CV where interests have to do a lot of work? Our first CV guide shows a full example, and Mojo's My first CV builder asks about the things you've done and turns them into CV lines for you. When you're done, check your CV free to see your CV Score and what to fix first.