IT CV Example
Updated 13 July 2026
An IT CV in 2026 must prove technical competence fast. Recruiters and ATS systems scan for specific tools, certifications and measurable impact in the first ten seconds. This guide shows you how to structure your IT CV, foreground in-demand skills and write achievement bullets that balance technical depth with business value.
It CV examples
Junior IT Support Technician
entryForegrounds certifications and a home-lab project to offset limited paid experience, with clear technical skills and quantified support metrics.
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
midBalances technical depth (Terraform, Kubernetes, Azure) with clear business outcomes (cost savings, uptime), and surfaces in-demand cloud skills throughout.
Senior IT Infrastructure Manager
seniorDemonstrates leadership scale (80-person team, 1,200 endpoints), strategic impact (merger integration, cost reduction) and a breadth of senior certifications.
How to write an it CV
CV structure and length
Keep your IT CV to two pages (one page if you have under three years of experience). Use reverse chronological order: professional summary, technical skills, work experience, technical projects (if relevant), education, certifications and optional extras.
Professional summary
Open with a 2-3 sentence summary naming your role, years of experience and your strongest technical stack. Surface one headline certification here if you have it (e.g. "AWS Certified Solutions Architect"). This is your elevator pitch.
Technical skills section
Place a dedicated technical skills section directly under your summary. List the specific tools, languages, platforms and systems you are confident with: Python, SQL, Active Directory, VMware, Azure, Kubernetes. When you have many skills, group by category (Cloud, Networking, Programming, Support) to help recruiters scan.
Mirror the exact technology names from the job spec. If the advert says "Azure AD", write "Azure AD" not "Microsoft cloud identity". ATS keyword-match on literal tool names, so copy the spelling verbatim: CCNA, CompTIA Security+, Power BI, Terraform.
Do not pad this section with generic computer literacy (Microsoft Office, email, typing). For an IT CV these are assumed. Reserve the section for genuine technical proficiencies and note proficiency level where useful (basic, intermediate, advanced). Never list a technology you cannot demonstrate in an interview.
Work experience
List roles in reverse chronological order. For each position include job title, employer, location, dates (month and year) and 3-4 achievement bullets. The experienceTips section below shows how to write these.
Technical projects
If you are a graduate, career-changer or have limited paid IT experience, add a short technical projects subsection. Describe hands-on work that proves your stack: a home lab, freelance build, hackathon project or migration you led. Include the technologies used and the outcome.
Education and certifications
List your degree (BSc Computer Science, HND Computing) with relevant modules if recent. Then list your most relevant certifications (max three) with the issuing body and date: CompTIA A+, Cisco CCNA, Microsoft Azure Administrator, ITIL Foundation, AWS Solutions Architect. For senior roles, surface the headline cert in your professional headline.
What to include per section
| Section | What to include |
|---|---|
| Professional summary | Role, years, top 2-3 technologies, headline cert (if any) |
| Technical skills | Specific tools/languages/platforms grouped by category; mirror job-spec keywords |
| Work experience | 3-4 achievement bullets per role using [Action verb] + [tech] + [measurable result] |
| Technical projects | Home lab, freelance, hackathon work with technologies and outcomes |
| Education | Degree, field, relevant modules (if recent) |
| Certifications | Top 3 certs with issuing body and date |
| Optional extras | Professional memberships (BCS), volunteering, publications if genuinely relevant |
Personal statement examples
Azure-certified cloud engineer with four years designing, deploying and optimising cloud infrastructure for SaaS platforms. Proven track record migrating on-premises workloads to Azure and AWS, cutting operational costs by 30% and improving system uptime to 99.7%. Skilled in Infrastructure as Code, Kubernetes and DevOps automation.
Hard-working IT professional with a passion for technology and problem-solving. A team player who is always learning new skills and looking for opportunities to grow. Seeking a challenging role in a dynamic company where I can make a difference.
Writing your experience
The formula: action verb + technology + measurable result
Every IT achievement bullet should follow this pattern. Name what you did, the technology you used and the outcome the business cared about. Quantify with the metrics recruiters scan for: system uptime, incident response time, cost savings, tickets resolved per day, provisioning time saved.
Before and after examples
| Weak (duty-focused) | Strong (result-focused) |
|---|---|
| Responsible for managing Active Directory and user accounts. | Provisioned 120 new user accounts in Active Directory and Microsoft 365, cutting average setup time from 45 to 18 minutes through PowerShell automation. |
| Migrated systems to AWS cloud. | Migrated 22 on-premises applications to AWS EC2 and RDS, reducing monthly infrastructure costs by 28% and improving deployment speed by 55%. |
| Provided IT support to users. | Resolved 18-22 first-line support tickets daily via Zendesk, maintaining 96% customer satisfaction rating and reducing average resolution time from 4 hours to 90 minutes. |
Balance technical depth with business value
Do not just say you "configured Kubernetes" or "implemented Terraform". Tie it to the outcome: "Deployed Kubernetes cluster for microservices platform, enabling horizontal scaling and reducing server costs by 24%." Recruiters want to see that you understand IT as a means to reliability, savings and user productivity, not technology for its own sake.
Action verbs for IT roles
Choose verbs that match the work: deployed, migrated, automated, configured, optimised, architected, provisioned, monitored, secured, troubleshot, resolved, designed, integrated, maintained, upgraded.
Weave skills through three places
Name your strongest stack in the professional summary, list specific tools in the dedicated skills section, then prove them in work-history bullets showing how you used each one. Repetition across sections helps the skill stick when a recruiter scans.
Key skills & ATS keywords
Hard skills
Soft skills
ATS keywords
Education & certifications
Education
List your degree with the institution name, qualification (BSc Computer Science, HND Computing, BEng Software Engineering) and graduation year. If you graduated in the past three years, include 2-3 relevant modules that match the role you are applying for: Network Administration, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Database Systems, Operating Systems.
If you have a non-IT degree but relevant certifications or experience, lead with those instead. A career-changer with CompTIA A+ and a home lab can be just as credible as a Computer Science graduate.
Certifications
IT certifications carry more weight than in many fields. List your most relevant certifications (max three on the main CV) with the issuing body and the year you earned them. Place this section directly after education or, for senior roles, immediately after your technical skills.
High-value IT certifications by discipline
Cloud: AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Microsoft Azure Administrator, Google Cloud Associate Engineer
Networking: Cisco CCNA, CompTIA Network+
Security: CompTIA Security+, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), CISSP (senior roles)
Support and service management: CompTIA A+, ITIL 4 Foundation
DevOps and automation: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA), HashiCorp Certified Terraform Associate
Project management: PMP, PRINCE2 (senior roles)
For senior roles, surface your headline certification in your professional summary (e.g. "AWS Certified Solutions Architect" or "PMP Certified IT Manager"). This signals credibility before the recruiter reads further.
What if I have no formal IT qualifications?
Many IT roles are accessible without a degree. Lead with certifications (CompTIA A+ is the entry-level standard for support roles), then prove your skills through a technical projects section: describe your home lab, freelance work, open-source contributions or hackathon projects. Show what you built, the technologies you used and the outcome.
Common mistakes to avoid
Listing generic computer skills (Microsoft Office, email, internet) as if they were specialist IT skills.
Reserve your skills section for genuine technical proficiencies: systems, platforms, languages, networking, cloud tools. For an IT CV, Office and email are assumed.
Writing duties instead of outcomes: "Responsible for managing servers" or "Handled user support tickets".
Use the formula [Action verb] + [technology] + [measurable result]. Example: "Managed 80 Windows Server VMs using VMware, maintaining 99.5% uptime and reducing provisioning time by 40%."
Using different terminology than the job spec (e.g. writing "Microsoft cloud identity" when the advert says "Azure AD").
Mirror the exact technology names from the job spec. ATS systems keyword-match on literal tool names, so copy the spelling verbatim: Azure AD, CompTIA Security+, Kubernetes, CCNA.
Listing technologies you cannot demonstrate or discuss in a technical interview.
Never pad your CV with tools you have only heard of. IT interviews frequently include a technical screen, and in the UK lying on a CV is an offence under the Fraud Act 2006. If you have exposure but not mastery, label it honestly (e.g. "familiar with", "intermediate").
Burying technical skills at the bottom of the CV or scattering them only through job descriptions.
Place a dedicated technical skills section directly under your professional summary. Then weave those skills through three places: name your strongest stack in the summary, list tools in the skills section, prove them in work-history bullets.
Focusing only on the technology without explaining the business value (e.g. "Migrated to AWS" with no mention of cost, speed or reliability impact).
Balance technical depth with business outcomes. Example: "Migrated 18 applications to AWS, reducing monthly infrastructure costs by 32% and improving deployment speed by 60%."
Junior vs senior: what changes
| Aspect | Junior | Senior |
|---|---|---|
| Professional summary | Leads with certifications (CompTIA A+, ITIL Foundation) and eagerness to learn. Mentions degree or training placement. | Leads with years of experience, leadership scope (team size, budget) and strategic impact (merger integration, cost reduction). Surfaces headline certifications (PMP, CISSP). |
| Technical skills | Focuses on foundational tools: Windows support, Active Directory, ticketing systems, basic scripting. May group skills by category to show breadth. | Emphasises architecture, strategy and governance: hybrid cloud design, cybersecurity frameworks (ISO 27001), vendor management, disaster recovery. Lists advanced certifications. |
| Achievement bullets | Quantifies support metrics: tickets resolved per day, customer satisfaction, setup time saved. Shows hands-on technical work. | Quantifies strategic impact: cost savings from migrations or vendor deals, uptime for large user bases, team size managed, project budgets delivered. Shows leadership and business alignment. |
| Technical projects section | Includes home lab, university projects, freelance work or hackathon builds to prove technical skills when paid experience is limited. | Omits this section. Proves technical depth through large-scale work experience (data centre migrations, enterprise architecture, multi-site rollouts). |
| Certifications | Entry-level certs: CompTIA A+, ITIL Foundation, Microsoft 365 Fundamentals. May list 2-3 to offset limited experience. | Advanced and leadership certs: PMP, ITIL Managing Professional, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, CISSP, CCNP. Surfaces headline cert in professional summary. |
| Scope and scale | Supports tens of users, manages individual tickets or small projects. Focuses on learning and building foundational skills. | Manages teams of 10-20+ people, oversees infrastructure for hundreds or thousands of users, leads multi-year projects with six-figure budgets. Focuses on strategy, governance and business outcomes. |