Should you put a photo on your CV in the UK? Almost always no
5 minute read · Updated 2026-09-01
The short answer for a UK CV is no photograph, and the reason has nothing to do with how you look. It is about what a photograph does to the person reading it, and what it does to their legal position.
Why UK employers would rather not have your picture
The Equality Act 2010 protects age, race, sex, disability, religion, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, and sexual orientation. A photograph reveals or hints at several of those before anybody has read a word about your experience.
A careful employer knows that if they reject you, and you later say the decision was discriminatory, the presence of a photograph on your application makes their defence harder. Some recruitment teams delete photographs before shortlisting for exactly that reason. Others quietly deprioritise CVs that carry one, because it signals that the applicant does not know UK convention.
Neither reaction helps you. Leave it off.
What else to leave off, and why
- Date of birth or age. Not needed, and it invites age discrimination whether or not it happens. The exception is a role with a legal minimum age, and even then you can write "over 18" rather than a date.
- Marital status, children, dependants. Irrelevant to every job in the country. Employers should not ask, and you should not volunteer it.
- Nationality and immigration status. Write "eligible to work in the UK" if you want to head off the question. You do not need to give your visa type, your share code or your passport number on a CV, and you should not.
- National Insurance number. Never on a CV. It is one of the details a scammer wants, and no legitimate employer needs it before an offer.
- Full home address. Town and county is enough. It answers the commute question without handing your address to anyone who reads the file.
- Health conditions and disabilities. You do not have to disclose. If you need an adjustment for the interview, ask for the adjustment without explaining the diagnosis. The duty to make reasonable adjustments is the employer's.
The exceptions, and they are narrow
Acting, modelling, presenting and some brand ambassador work use a headshot as a matter of course, because appearance is a genuine occupational requirement. In those trades the photograph is usually a separate professional headshot or a Spotlight profile rather than something embedded in a Word document.
Outside performance, if an application form specifically asks you to upload a photograph, that is their process. Follow it. But do not add one where it was not requested.
What to put in the space instead
The top of a CV is the most valuable few centimetres you own. Use it for your name, your town, one email address, one telephone number, and, if you have one, a LinkedIn address. Then go straight into a short personal statement that says what you do and what you are looking for.
If you want the reader to feel they know who you are, that comes from specifics: the size of the sites you have run, the tonnage you have moved, the number of residents you looked after on a night shift. Details do the job a photograph cannot.
Next: our guide to writing a UK CV and the personal statement, both free, and then search the board.