The UK academic CV: length, order and what panels actually check

What a UK shortlisting panel expects to find on an academic CV, section by section, and the conventions that mark a document as ready.

How long it should be

Forget the one-page rule; it belongs to corporate recruitment. A UK academic CV runs to the length the record justifies. Two to three pages is normal for a PhD student, three to four for a postdoc, and a professor's CV can pass ten without anyone blinking. The test is density, not length. Every line should carry a fact a panel could check: a degree, a paper, a grant, a course taught. Padding is what gets noticed, and what gets punished.

Panels shortlist quickly. A lectureship can draw over a hundred applications, and the first read of your CV may last two minutes. That read has a purpose: the panel is scoring you against the essential criteria in the person specification. Your job is to make each criterion findable in seconds, which is a question of ordering.

The order of sections

Start with your name and contact details at the top. No photograph, no date of birth, no marital status. UK applications tolerate more personal detail than US ones, but none of it helps you, and equality law has pushed panels to prefer its absence.

Then, for a research post, run the sections in this order: research interests, education, publications, grants and awards, research experience, teaching experience, service and administration, referees. For a teaching-focused post, lift teaching above publications. The principle is blunt: the panel's first question comes first on your CV.

A short research interests statement, three or four lines, sits under your contact details. Write it for the department you are applying to. It should read like the opening of a conversation about your next five years, and it should change with every application.

Education, the thesis and the viva

List degrees in reverse order with institution, dates and classification. UK conventions apply: First-Class Honours, Distinction, and so on. For the PhD, name the thesis title and your supervisors. If you have not yet defended, give the submission date and expected viva date; panels hire people who are "submitting in March" all the time, and precision here reads as confidence. Vagueness reads as slippage.

Publications: the section that decides shortlisting

Split publications into subsections rather than pouring them into one list: peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, articles under review, conference papers. The split matters because a paper under review is real information but different information, and mixing the categories looks like an attempt to inflate the first one. Use a consistent referencing style, bold your own name in author lists, and give DOIs where they exist.

Early-career applicants worry about thin publication sections. A short honest list beats a padded one. Blog posts, internal reports and posters do not belong under publications; if they earn a place at all, it is under public engagement or conference activity. One good paper in a recognised journal outweighs the lot.

Grants, even small ones

UK departments think about research income constantly, and a CV that shows you can win money answers a question the panel is already asking. List every competitive award with the funder, the scheme, the amount and the year: travel grants, fieldwork funds, a £500 conference bursary. The amounts matter less than the habit. A candidate who has won five small pots looks like someone who will win larger ones.

Teaching

Name the modules, your role on them, and the level: seminar leader on a second-year survey course, guest lecturer, marker. Include numbers where you can, because "taught 120 first-years across four seminar groups" tells a panel more than "extensive teaching experience". If you hold or are working towards an HEA fellowship or a teaching qualification, say so here.

Referees go on the CV

This is the convention that most surprises people arriving from other systems. A UK academic CV ends with two or three referees, listed with full contact details: name, title, institution, email. One should be your PhD supervisor unless there is a good reason otherwise. Ask each referee before you list them, and send them the job advert; a warm, specific reference arrives faster than a cold one. Writing "references available on request" on an academic CV signals unfamiliarity with the genre.

Formatting that behaves

Dates belong in a right-aligned column, set with tab stops rather than spaces, so the eye can run down the page and check your history in one pass. Choose one serif or sans-serif face and hold it throughout, keep headings consistent, and print to A4. Then proofread the document twice, once on screen and once on paper, because a typo in a publications list undermines the very care the list is meant to show.

Tailoring is the last step, every time

Keep a master CV holding everything, then cut and reorder a copy for each application against the person specification. This takes half an hour per job. It is the cheapest advantage available on the market, and most applicants skip it.