Two A4 CV pages side by side over a ruler, a crossed-out dashed third page, and a badge saying 2 pages 1 2 2 pages

The short answer

In the UK, a CV should be two sides of A4 for most people. One page is right for school leavers, students and many graduates. Three pages is only worth it for senior, highly technical or contract roles with a lot of relevant detail, and academic or research CVs can run longer because they list publications. Whatever your level, every line should help the reader decide to interview you: a tight one-page CV beats a padded two-pager.

How long your CV should be, by situation

There's no law or official standard, but UK employers broadly expect these lengths:

  • First CV, school leaver or Saturday job: one page. See how to write your first CV.
  • Student or part-time work: one page.
  • Recent graduate: one page, or two if you've done a placement year, significant part-time work or relevant projects.
  • Two to ten years' experience: two pages. This is where many CVs sit.
  • Senior and executive roles: two pages, occasionally three. Senior readers expect you to be able to prioritise, so a long CV can work against you. The operations director CV example shows how a senior CV leads with scale and results rather than a full history.
  • Contractors, IT and engineering specialists: two pages, sometimes three if you list projects, clients and technologies. A short project summary at the end can keep the main CV to two.
  • Academic, research and some clinical roles: as long as needed for publications, grants, teaching and presentations. These CVs follow different conventions.

If the job advert or application pack sets a length ("a CV of no more than two pages"), follow it exactly. Ignoring a stated limit is one of the easiest ways to get rejected.

One page or two? How to decide

Much of the "one page only" advice online comes from the US, where a one-page resume is the norm for early-career applicants. UK employers are used to two pages and won't think less of you for using the second page well. A simple test helps you choose:

  • Choose one page if everything relevant you've done fits comfortably with room to breathe, if you have fewer than about three years of relevant experience, or if you're applying for part-time, entry-level or seasonal roles.
  • Choose two pages if cutting to one would mean losing results, responsibilities or qualifications the employer has asked for in the advert.
  • Never go to a second page for just a few lines. Either tighten the first page or add something genuinely useful so page two is at least half full.

If you're unsure, write the longer version first, then cut. It's easier to remove the weakest lines than to invent strong ones.

What counts as a page?

A "two-page CV" means two sides of A4, not two sheets printed on both sides. And it means two pages at a readable size. Squeezing a three-page CV onto two pages by shrinking everything doesn't count. As a guide:

  • Body text: 10.5 to 12 point, depending on the font. The National Careers Service suggests a clear font such as Arial or Calibri at size 11 or bigger.
  • Margins: around 1.5cm to 2.5cm. Below that, the page looks crammed and can clip when printed.
  • Line spacing: single spacing for text, with a little space between sections so the reader can see where each one starts.

Our UK CV format guide covers fonts, layout and file types in more detail.

How far back should your CV go?

For most people, the last 10 to 15 years deserve detail. Before that, a brief summary is enough. A practical way to divide the space:

  • Your current or most recent role: four to six bullet points.
  • The role before that: three to five bullet points.
  • Older roles in the last 10 to 15 years: two or three bullet points each.
  • Anything older: one line each, or a single "Earlier career" line: "Earlier career: retail management roles with two national retailers, 2006 to 2011."

The same thinking applies to education. Once you have a degree or several years of work, you don't need every GCSE. "GCSEs: 9, including English and Maths" or simply "GCSEs including English and Maths" is plenty.

How to cut a CV down to two pages

If your CV has crept onto a third page, work through this list in order. Many CVs reach two pages before the end of it.

  1. Delete the things nobody needs: the word "Curriculum Vitae" as a title, your full postal address (your town is enough), date of birth, photo, an "Objective" paragraph that repeats your profile, and a references section.
  2. Cut duties that every person in that job does. "Answered phones and emails" doesn't distinguish you. Keep the bullets that show results, scale or something you did differently.
  3. Merge repeated points. If three roles each say "managed stakeholder relationships", say it once, in the role where you did it best.
  4. Shrink older roles to one line each, as above.
  5. Trim your skills list to the 8 to 15 that matter for this job. Drop skills everyone is assumed to have.
  6. Remove hobbies unless they're relevant to the role or genuinely say something useful about you.
  7. Tighten each bullet to one or two lines. Start with the action, end with the result, and cut filler words ("in order to", "responsible for", "various").
  8. Fix spill-over. If page three holds only two or three lines, tightening one or two bullets usually pulls them back.

Worked example: from three and a half pages to two

Here's a fictional example. Priya is a marketing manager with nine years' experience across three employers. Her CV ran to three and a half pages. These were her cuts:

  • Removed "Curriculum Vitae" heading, full address and a 90-word "Career objective" that repeated her profile.
  • Reduced her first job (2016 to 2018, marketing assistant) from seven bullet points to one line.
  • Deleted bullets that listed tasks ("Managed the social media calendar", "Attended weekly meetings") and kept the ones with outcomes ("Relaunched the email newsletter, lifting click-through rate from 1.8% to 3.1%").
  • Cut her skills list from 31 items to 12, removing "Microsoft Word", "Outlook" and "Internet research".
  • Replaced eleven GCSEs and four A levels with one line, as she has a degree and nine years' experience.
  • Dropped "Interests: reading, travel, cooking".

The result was a full two pages with nothing important lost. The detail that survived was the detail an interviewer would want to ask about.

How long should each section be?

Thinking section by section stops any one part from taking over. On a two-page CV, these are sensible proportions:

  • Name and contact details: two lines at most. Name, town, phone, email and (if you keep it up to date) a LinkedIn link.
  • Profile: three to five lines. Our personal statement examples show how much fits in that space.
  • Experience: the majority of the CV, usually more than a page. It's where employers look for evidence that you can do the job.
  • Education: two to six lines once you're working. School leavers and graduates can give it more room and move it above experience.
  • Skills: a short block of 8 to 15 items, or a few grouped lines.
  • Certifications, training and memberships: one line each, most relevant first.
  • Interests: one or two lines, or nothing.

If one section is out of proportion (a skills list longer than your latest job, or education that takes half a page after ten years of work), that's usually where to cut.

Application forms, online uploads and cover letters

Some employers don't take a CV at all. Public sector employers, for example, often use online application forms with word limits for each answer or for a supporting statement. In that case, the word limit is the length rule: stay under it, and use most of it.

When a site asks you to upload a CV and also gives you a free-text box, don't paste your whole CV into the box. Use it for a short covering note. A cover letter itself should fit on one page: the National Careers Service describes it as usually three to five paragraphs. Our cover letter examples show what that looks like in practice.

What if your CV is too short?

A one-page CV is completely acceptable when you're early in your career. Don't pad it with bigger fonts, wide margins or vague sentences. Instead, add substance:

  • Projects: coursework, a dissertation, something you built, an event you organised.
  • Volunteering and responsibilities: they're real experience, and they belong in your experience section.
  • Short courses and certificates: first aid, food hygiene, a free online course in a tool the job uses.
  • Results in your existing bullets: how many customers, how much money, how often, what changed because of you.

If you're a few lines short of a full page, that's fine. White space is easier to read than filler.

Does CV length affect applicant tracking systems?

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) read the text of your CV and match it to the job. There's no general rule in ATS software that rejects a CV for being three pages long. Length matters for the human who reads it afterwards, usually quickly. So length isn't an ATS problem, but relevance is: a long CV with the important keywords buried on page three is harder for both the software and the person to match. Our ATS guide explains how they work.

CV length checklist

  • One page for a first CV, student or most graduates; two pages for most experienced people
  • Three pages only for senior, technical or contract roles with relevant detail to justify it
  • Any length limit in the job advert followed exactly
  • Body text at least 10.5 point, margins at least 1.5cm
  • Last 10 to 15 years in detail, older roles in a line each
  • No address, date of birth, photo, objective statement or references section
  • Skills list trimmed to what this job needs
  • No page with only a few lines on it

Not sure whether your CV is saying too much or too little? Run a free CV check: in about 30 seconds you'll see a CV Score out of 100, a score for your layout and each section, and the fixes that will make the biggest difference first.