In short
- CV skills are what you can do (hard skills), how you work (soft or transferable skills), your IT skills, languages and licences.
- Pick 5 to 8 key skills from the job advert, and only ones you can back up.
- Use the advert's own words: that's what the recruiter scans for, and what applicant tracking systems compare.
- Prove your most important skills in your work history, with a result.
- Leave out your age, date of birth, marital status and nationality: they don't belong on a UK CV.
On this page
- What counts as skills for a CV?
- Hard skills and soft skills: the two halves of your CV skills
- Key skills for CV: examples by sector
- Soft skills to put on a CV, with proof
- IT skills, languages and licences
- How to choose the right skills for your CV
- How to present CV skills
- Skills for CV: examples for 10 UK jobs
- Skills for CV with little or no work experience
- Mistakes to avoid in a CV skills section
- Your CV skills with Kandiq
- Questions
What counts as skills for a CV?
A skill is something you can do, and do again for another employer: cash up a till, plan a delivery route, write a care plan, build a pivot table, handle a complaint. The National Careers Service says employers look for a mix of hard skills (specific skills, like knowing how to write or send an email) and soft skills, which include transferable skills like teamwork, communication and problem solving.
On a UK CV, skills appear in three places: a short Key skills section, your personal statement at the top, and the bullet points of your work history. The list says what you can do; the work history proves it.
Hard skills and soft skills: the two halves of your CV skills
Prospects, the graduate careers site, describes hard skills as specific, teachable abilities that you list on your CV and that are often tested at interview or through assessments. Soft skills, also called behavioural or transferable skills, are about how you work and communicate, and they carry from one job or sector to the next.
| Hard skills | Soft (transferable) skills | |
|---|---|---|
| What they are | Tools, techniques, methods of the trade | How you work, communicate and organise yourself |
| Where you gain them | Courses, qualifications, training, the job itself | Work, study, volunteering, sport, caring |
| How you prove them | A qualification, a licence, a result with a figure | A short example: situation, action, result |
| Examples | Sage 50, food hygiene, phlebotomy, forklift (counterbalance) | Communication, teamwork, resilience, time management |
| Where they go | Key skills section and work history | Personal statement and work history |
Key skills for CV: examples by sector
Keep each skill to two to four words, as job adverts in your sector write them:
- Retail and hospitality: customer service, till operation, cash handling, stock rotation, visual merchandising, food hygiene, barista skills.
- Health and social care: personal care, moving and handling, medication administration, care plans, safeguarding, record keeping.
- Office and administration: diary management, minute taking, data entry, Microsoft 365, invoicing, switchboard.
- Finance: bookkeeping, VAT returns, payroll, bank reconciliations, purchase ledger, Sage 50, Xero.
- Logistics and warehouse: picking and packing, forklift (counterbalance or reach), goods in, stock control, handheld scanners.
- Digital and IT: Excel (pivot tables, XLOOKUP), SQL, Python, Power BI, first-line support, cyber security awareness.
- Sales and marketing: account management, lead generation, CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), social media, SEO, copywriting.
- Trades and construction: reading drawings, health and safety, site setup, power tools, CSCS card.
Soft skills to put on a CV, with proof
Communication, teamwork, problem solving, adaptability, reliability, time management, leadership and attention to detail are the soft skills you'll see in most adverts. Choose the two to four the advert stresses. Prospects advises giving specific examples of when you've put them into practice, and the National Careers Service recommends the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) for describing what you did.
Before: “Excellent communication skills and a good team player.”
After: “Handled 40 to 60 customer calls a day and resolved 9 in 10 complaints at first contact, working with a team of 8.”
The second line shows communication, teamwork and composure without naming them. Use this kind of sentence in your work history and in your CV personal statement; keep the skills list for what fits in a few words.
IT skills, languages and licences
- IT skills: Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Google Workspace. Say what you do with them: “Excel (formulas, pivot tables)” rather than “good IT skills”.
- Sector software: EPOS systems in retail, Sage or Xero in finance, SystmOne or EMIS in primary care, a warehouse management system in logistics.
- Languages: give a level an employer can read, such as “Polish (native), French (B2)”. The CEFR scale, from A1 to C2, is widely used in the UK and Europe.
- Licences and certificates: full UK driving licence, Food Hygiene Level 2, first aid at work, CSCS card, SIA licence, forklift certificate. Only the ones the job needs.
- AI tools: if you use them at work, say for what (drafting, summarising, analysing data), not just that you know them.
How to choose the right skills for your CV
The National Careers Service's CV guide is clear: tailor your CV to each job, and highlight the skills the employer has asked for, because it can improve your chances of getting an interview. If the advert has no job description, it suggests looking at its job profiles to see the skills a job needs. In practice:
- Go through the advert and the person specification. Mark every tool, qualification and behaviour, and note which are essential and which are desirable.
- List what you can do: current job, past jobs, placements, volunteering, study, things you do in daily life.
- Match the two. Keep the essential criteria you meet, then the desirable ones.
- Keep 5 to 8 key skills, ordered by what matters most for this job.
- Rewrite them in the advert's words: “customer service” if it says “customer service”, not “dealing with the public”.
How to present CV skills
- A standard heading: “Key skills” or “Skills”. Software recognises them; “What I bring” it may not.
- Short lines or a two-column list of single skills, not a paragraph.
- Levels in words for IT and languages: basic, intermediate, advanced, fluent. Bars and star ratings look tidy, but a word is read more reliably.
- Grouped when the list is long: technical skills, IT, languages, licences.
- Near the top if you are changing career or have little work history; after your experience if your job titles already say it all.
Before: “Hard-working, reliable, good with computers, people person.”
After: “Customer service · Till and cash handling · Stock control · Food Hygiene Level 2 · Microsoft Excel (intermediate) · Spanish (B2)”
Skills for CV: examples for 10 UK jobs
Customer service, till operation, cash handling, stock replenishment, visual merchandising, click and collect.
Personal care, moving and handling, medication support, care plan updates, safeguarding awareness, dementia care.
Clinical observations, venepuncture, ECGs, patient hygiene, infection prevention, electronic patient records.
Front of house, switchboard, appointment booking, visitor sign-in, Microsoft 365, handling enquiries by phone and email.
Diary management, minute taking, data entry, invoicing, filing and records, Excel (formulas, pivot tables).
Picking and packing, handheld scanners, counterbalance forklift licence, goods in, stock counts, manual handling.
Food preparation, running a section, HACCP, allergen management, stock ordering, Food Hygiene Level 3.
Small-group support, phonics, behaviour management, SEN support, classroom preparation, safeguarding.
Bookkeeping, bank reconciliations, VAT returns, payroll, purchase and sales ledger, Xero and Sage 50, AAT Level 3.
JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Node.js, SQL, Git, automated testing, Agile.
Skills for CV with little or no work experience
For a first job, the National Careers Service suggests focusing on skills you've learned through projects, work experience or volunteering, and adding interests that show a skill: captaining a sports team, for example, shows leadership and organisation. Coursework, a Saturday job, Duke of Edinburgh, helping run a club or caring for a relative all count, if you say what you did.
Changing career? Put your transferable skills first: the ones from your current job that the new advert also asks for. Then add any course or qualification you've started for the new role.
See our student CV examples and graduate CV examples for complete CVs at the start of a career.
Mistakes to avoid in a CV skills section
- Clichés with nothing behind them: “hard-working”, “team player”, “can work on own initiative”. Every CV says it.
- Skills the job doesn't need: a long list hides the five that matter.
- Overstating your level: “fluent German” that falls apart in the interview.
- Personal details in the wrong place: the National Careers Service advises leaving out age, date of birth, marital status and nationality. Skills are what you can do, not who you are.
- The same CV for every application: adjust the skills to each advert. It takes five minutes.
Your CV skills with Kandiq
In the Kandiq CV builder, the “Your skills” step is complete at five named skills, each with a level from Novice to Expert, and the editor reminds you to use the exact terms from the job advert. IT skills have their own “Software and tools” section (titled “Technical Skills” on the CV), next to languages (shown with both the CEFR code and a plain-English level) and certifications. If you've added a job advert, the editor lists its terms: add them only if they truly describe what you can do. “Suggest skills” reads your experience and the advert and suggests up to twelve hard skills, for 1 AI credit (you get 5 when you sign up). It never suggests soft skills like “Adaptability” or “Team spirit”: they're better shown in your work history.
Before you send it, the Kandiq CV checker checks that you list at least five skills spelled out in words, and, with the job advert pasted, shows which of its terms your CV covers and which are missing.
Frequently asked questions.
Sources
About the author
Diego Benitez
Founder of Kandiq, more than 100 hires led
Diego Benitez has hired more than a hundred people, in marketing, sport and sales, as a manager at Intersport and then as Head of Growth at Goodvest (2022 to 2026). He ran those hiring processes from start to finish: screening applications, interviews, the hiring decision, then managing the team. He also knows the candidate's side: internships, work-study, student jobs, a permanent contract, starting an agency, then freelancing. He built Kandiq to give candidates what he looked for in an application himself, and what screening software can read. His guides start from the questions candidates ask Google, rely on official public sources (government employment and careers services, employment law) and are updated when the rules change. The examples are fictional; the figures are sourced.
