An ATS-friendly CV for UK agency software

What does UK agency software do with your CV?

When you apply through a UK agency, a parser turns your CV into a record: name, contact details, job titles, dates, skills. Recruiters then search those records. Bullhorn, Mercury and Colleague document Daxtra or Textkernel parsers, Bullhorn bought Textkernel, and JobAdder and Vincere offer Daxtra tools as add-ons (vendor documentation, read 26 September 2026).

So "ATS-friendly" in the UK mostly means parser-friendly: a file whose text the parser can read, whose headings and dates it recognises, and whose skills are written in the words a recruiter will search for. Fitread's free guide to how a CV becomes a record walks through the parsing step with its sources; this page is about what to do.

Which words does the software look for?

Recruiters search records and job-board CV databases with keywords and Boolean strings: job title, skills, location, pay. A search for Kubernetes does not find K8s unless the system has been told they are the same, and most searches are typed by a person in a hurry.

Fitread checks the variants for you. Its skill vocabulary maps each alias to one skill, so a reading tells you which of the advert's skills your CV shows under any spelling: Kubernetes and K8s; AWS and Amazon Web Services; Docker and containerisation; GitLab and GitLab CI; SC Clearance from "SC cleared" or "active SC"; the CSCS card and its long form, Construction Skills Certification Scheme. Multi-word terms are matched first, so "Power BI" is not read as two words.

The fix is the same every time: write the full term and its acronym once each, in the words the advert uses; Tailor my CV suggests the line for each gap from what your CV already says. Clearances and cards are shown on a reading as facts you hold, never as match points, because they are eligibility, not skill.

Which layout rules matter?

The parser guidance one common UK system publishes asks for no tables, headers, text boxes, graphics or image files (vendor documentation, read 26 September 2026). Two columns, a skills table and a headshot are the usual casualties.

Fitread's searchability checks are built from that: contact details the parser can find, standard headings, dates it can read, acronyms with their long form, text it could actually extract, length, file type and file name. A pasted CV skips the layout checks, because fonts, margins and columns need the file itself.

Which skills should an ATS-friendly CV name?

Fitread reads 30,777 live UK adverts (read 25 October 2026) with the same skill vocabulary it uses on your CV, so the skills it tells you to name are the ones adverts are naming now, not a list from a careers book.

For Social Worker, the biggest role in the live data, Social Work England registration appears in 93% of 1,219 adverts. Name it in the advert's words and a keyword search finds you; leave it out and the best parser in the world cannot help.

The role-by-role table is in the skills UK adverts ask for, and how to use it without rewriting your CV every time is in should you tailor your CV to every job?.

How do you check your CV before you send it?

Upload it and read it against one advert. Read my CV runs the searchability checks and the match score in one pass, free, with no account: a guest's file is read and discarded in the same request. The reading lists what the parser would struggle with and which of the advert's skills it could not find, with the fix beside each. When the CV is right, Job Match finds the live adverts it answers.