Address on CV: When & How You Should Put Your Location In

In the UK, including your address on your CV is common. When you download a CV template, you’ll usually see a spot for your location among your other personal details, like so:

But is telling employers where you live before they hire you really a good idea? Whether or not you should put your address on your CV depends on your situation. Here’s when you should and shouldn’t:

Once you’ve determined whether revealing your location is necessary when you’re writing your CV, here are your options for putting an address on a CV (or not). Click on each option to learn more about when you should use it and how:

• Including your full address (e.g., 14 Aga Street, Beaconsfield, H9J 3K4)
• Putting in your town only
• Stating your relocation plans or availability (e.g., ‘willing to relocate’ or ‘relocating to [town] in [time frame]’)
• Leaving your address off your CV

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Including your full address

You should include your full address on a CV if:

• the job advert specifically says to
• the company prefers applicants who live in a certain area
• your short commute to the office is one of your selling points (e.g., living within walking distance ensures you won’t be late to work because of car troubles or delayed public transport, underscoring your dependability)
• your most recent work experience is overseas, and you want to emphasise that you’re currently living in the UK

If you don’t mind letting your target employer know where you live, you can follow this example of how to put a full address on a CV:

And if you live in a big city and want to emphasise your close proximity to an employer, you can include your neighbourhood, like this:

45 Templeton Drive, Chelsea, London, SW3 5ES

Putting in your town only

If you don’t want to give employers your full address, you can still let them know you’re in their general area by just putting your town on your CV. Reasons for only placing your town on your CV include:

• hiding a long commute (e.g., you live in Enfield and the company you’re applying to is a 1.5-hour drive away in Croydon, so you just list ‘London’)
• showing an employer hiring remote workers within the UK that you live in the UK
• maintaining some privacy while providing your general location

This is an example of a CV personal information section with just a town put down in the location slot:

Stating your relocation plans or availability

Are you applying to jobs all over the country (or even the world)? Don’t let your address on your CV disqualify you. Instead, let the recruiter know you’ll go wherever the work is by writing ‘Willing to relocate’ where you’d normally place your address.

Or if you’re planning a move to where the employer is, start your CV by writing something like this to let the employer know you’ll be in the right place at the right time: ‘Moving to [Town] in [Month Year]’.

This is how a relocation statement looks on a CV:

Leaving your address off your CV

Unless the job advert specifically tells you to, it’s okay not to include your address on a CV. So just delete your location from your CV’s personal information section if you’re:

• concerned about privacy
• unable to meet the employer’s location requirements but want to try to convince them to make an exception
• needing space on your CV for more job-relevant information

And this is how a CV header looks without an address:

3 tips on how to put your address on your CV

Here are three tips for including your address in a CV’s layout (or skip the work and use an online CV creator that automatically formats your address for you):

1. Use proper postal address formatting

Show your professionalism and attention to detail by using the right format for your address. So, just write it like you would when you’re addressing an envelope:

Street #, Street Name, Town, postcode (e.g., 1 Crumpet Lane, Wrexham, LL11 1PA)

And if you’re not including your full address on your CV, delete the items you don’t want to reveal, but keep the remaining information in the same order. For instance:

Leicester, LE1 2AT

Soho, London

2. Put it with the rest of your contact information

Once you have your address formatted properly, it’s time to put it in your CV. It’s not complicated — just put it with the rest of your contact information. We suggest placing it after your phone number and email, which are more important because the employer will use one of them to contact you. But you can move your address up if you want to ensure the employer sees where you’re located.

Typically, your contact information goes at the top of your CV in the header, like this:

But some CV templates place your address and other personal details in their own section in a column. Here’s an example:

3. Use a CV icon to make your address easy to find

Help the employer see where you live by using a CV icon to make your address stand out.

You can download CV icons and add them to your contact details yourself — just make sure you download icons of the same style for the rest of your personal information so everything in the section matches. But the easiest way to use icons is to find a CV template with built-in icons. Doing so ensures your CV appears professionally formatted.

To save you the trouble of searching the internet, here’s a free-to-download CV template that includes an icon for your address:

Download CV Template

Common questions related to putting an address on a CV

Still searching for answers to your CV address question? Here are answers to three frequently posed questions related to including an address on a CV:

1. What personal details should be on my CV?
2. How do I put my LinkedIn address on my CV?
3. Should I put my address on my cover letter?

1. What personal details should be on my CV?

The only personal details on your CV should be your:

• first and last names
• email address
• phone number
• postal address
• relevant online profiles (e.g., LinkedIn, Twitter)

Except for your name and preferred form of contact, all of the above personal details are optional.

You may also include personal information in your hobbies and interests section (e.g., ‘I enjoy gardening in my spare time’).

Also, there may be situations in which you need to use experience from your personal life to prove your fit for a role.

For instance, let’s say you’re applying for a care worker job, and you don’t have professional care work experience. However, you have served as a carer for an elder family member. Describing that personal experience on your CV could help you get the job over more experienced applicants.

2. How do I put my LinkedIn address on my CV?

Here’s how you put your LinkedIn address on your CV:

• Open your LinkedIn profile
• Go to ‘Edit public profile & URL’
• Replace the string of random numbers and letters LinkedIn automatically adds to your URL with whatever combination of your name, initials, and/or job title that hasn’t been taken yet (e.g., ‘ben-underwood-093hjB’ → ‘ben-underwood-designer’)
• Click ‘Save’
• Copy everything after the ‘www.’ (including the entire URL will create a link in your CV, which appears unprofessional)
• Paste your LinkedIn address into your CV’s contact information section

Here’s a video that shows you how:

3. Should I put my address on my cover letter?

If you put your address on your CV, then yes, put it on your cover letter too. But if you don’t put your address on your CV, then leave it off when you write your cover letter as well.

Keeping your CV format and cover letter structure consistent shows your attention to detail. And if you want to emphasise your location to the employer, putting your address on both of your application documents increases the chances they see it.

The easiest way to use consistent formatting is to use a cover letter template that matches your CV’s design.