Should You Put Your Address on Your CV?

Twenty years ago every CV opened with a full postal address, because that is how you would have been contacted. Nobody posts letters to candidates now, and yet most people still put their house number at the top of the page out of habit.

The honest answer is that a full address is no longer necessary, but removing location entirely is a mistake. There is a middle position, and it is the one that works.

What Recruiters Actually Use Location For

Nobody is writing to you. Location survives on a CV for one practical reason: the reader wants to know whether the commute is realistic.

A recruiter filling a role in Leeds is making a quick judgement about whether someone will still be there in a year. If your CV gives no clue where you live, they cannot make that judgement, and a reader who cannot answer a question often moves to the next application rather than pausing to find out.

Location also comes up in shortlisting for roles with shift patterns, site attendance, or regional patches. In all of those cases, absence of information reads as an unknown risk.

Town and County Is the Right Amount

The format that works is your town or city and county, and nothing more. Something like Manchester, Greater Manchester at the top of the page next to your phone number and email.

That gives the reader everything they need for the commute question and nothing they do not. Your street, house number and postcode add no value to anybody assessing you, and there is no upside to publishing them on a document that gets forwarded around.

If you are applying for fully remote work, the nearest city is still worth including. Employers have tax, right to work and equipment obligations that depend on where you are based, and a remote role advertised in the UK usually needs you to be in the UK.

Why the Full Address Is Worth Dropping

There is a privacy argument and a practical one.

Your CV travels further than you think. It gets emailed between agencies, uploaded to job boards, stored in applicant tracking systems, and occasionally left on a printer. Every copy carries your home address, and you have no control over any of them once the file leaves your hands.

The practical argument is space. The top of your CV is the most valuable area on the page, and three lines of postal address push your personal statement down for no return. That space is better spent on the sentence that makes someone keep reading. Our guide on writing a personal statement that gets noticed covers how to use it.

When You Live Far From the Job

This is the situation people are really worried about when they ask the question. You want a job in London and you live in Newcastle, so you think about hiding it.

Hiding it does not work. It comes up in the first phone call, and by then you have spent someone’s time under a false impression, which starts the relationship badly.

The better approach is to address it directly and briefly. If you are relocating, say so on the CV, near your location line. A short note that you are relocating to the area, ideally with a rough timeframe, turns a red flag into a plan. If you have somewhere to stay or you have already given notice on a tenancy, that is worth a few words in the cover letter.

If you are not relocating and intend to commute a long way, be realistic. Employers have seen plenty of people take a distant job and leave within six months. If the commute genuinely works, explain why in a sentence, because they will assume it does not.

Applicant Tracking Systems and Location Fields

Most large employers run applications through an applicant tracking system, and many of those systems have a location field separate from your CV. Some filter or sort on it.

Fill that field in accurately, whatever you decide to put on the document itself. A mismatch between the form and the CV looks like carelessness, and in a system that ranks candidates automatically it can push you down a list for no good reason.

If you are relocating, most forms let you enter the target area with a note. Use it rather than leaving the system to guess.

What Else to Cut From the Header

While you are reviewing the top of the page, a few other things have outlived their usefulness.

• Date of birth. Not required in the UK and it invites age bias.
• Marital status and nationality. Same reason, no benefit.
• A full row of social profiles. One relevant professional link is enough.
• The word “Curriculum Vitae” as a heading. The reader knows what they are holding.
• A photograph, in almost all UK applications. Our guide on whether to include a photo explains the exceptions.

What should be there is your name, your phone number, a professional email address, your town and county, and a link to your professional profile if it is current and worth reading.

The Short Version

Put your town and county. Leave off the street and postcode. If you are moving, say so in a few words rather than leaving a gap for someone to worry about.

It is a small decision, but the top four lines of your CV are read by everyone who opens it, and they are the only part guaranteed to be read at all.