What recruiters want to see on an IT contractor’s CV

Contractor CV

Clients and agents need to recruit people who can join a project and get on with the job from day one. Accordingly, contractors’ CVs need to be to-the-point and accessible.

Before entering the contract world, you would typically submit CVs for ‘normal’ jobs that detail everything about your past, from the school and university you attended to your skills as a fire safety officer and your favourite hobbies.

Thankfully for many, a good contractor CV will contain none of these elements, as its sole aim is to provide a potential client with an accessible, up-to-date summary of your skills.

Recruiters need to source people who can fill positions quickly and integrate into projects with minimal fuss.

Scroll down for an example contractor CV template.

Key features of a killer contractor CV

Here are some of the key things you should bear in mind when writing an IT contractor CV:

Skills

On page one, you should highlight your technical skills and industry experience. Keep this list up-to-date and tailor it to the role you are applying for.

Qualifications

You should list any technical qualifications or accreditations if you have any. You can mention your degree if relevant, but recruiters aren’t interested in your GCSE results.

Contract Roles

List your contract experience in reverse date order (the most recent first). Keep any details to the point.

Renewals

When listing contract positions you have held, it always looks good if you have had renewals, so write “18 months – 2 renewals” rather than “18 months”.

CV Length

Ideally, your CV should be just two pages long. Spend more time detailing recent roles and summarising any older roles. Scroll down for a sample CV layout for professional contractors.

Personal Information

A potential client will need to know your name and date of birth.

Your religion, marital status, and race aren’t worth mentioning on your CV.

Although handy as a conversation starter, try to keep extra-curricular information to a minimum. “I have a golf handicap of 21 – I play a great deal and participate in a number of tournaments when time allows” could be abbreviated to “Golf”.

Presentation, Grammar, and Spelling

Run your CV through a spell checker (e.g. Grammarly) and/or ChatGPT and ask a colleague or friend to read it before submitting copies to recruiters.

Your CV should be produced in a uniform, standard font, and larger chunks of information should be broken up for easier digestion.

Results

As well as listing your roles and responsibilities during your contracting career, try to point out the results you have achieved on each project. Potential employers are more likely to interview you if you have a track record of success.

Can you explain any gaps?

Make sure you can account for any “gaps” in your CV.

As candidates in successive series of BBC’s “The Apprentice” have found out, nothing is more embarrassing than being caught out when you can’t explain where a few months of your working life disappeared.

Suggested CV Layout

There are no ‘rules’ for writing a professional CV or official guidelines for the layout you should use.

Having been involved in the contracting world for many years, here is a basic layout used by the Contract Eye team on past projects:

Your Personal Details

  • Full Name
  • Current Address
  • Contact Details (Phone, Email, etc. – the agency should remove if forwarding to a client)
  • Date of Birth
  • Nationality
  • Do you require a Work Permit?

Summary

This is an important paragraph or two which concisely explains who you are, what skills you have, and what experience you bring to the table.

Here’s an example.

Experienced Database Administrator with over 10 years of expertise in managing and optimizing large-scale, mission-critical database systems for major financial institutions.

Proven track record in database design, performance tuning, cloud migrations (AWS RDS, Azure SQL), and ensuring regulatory compliance in high-pressure, data-driven environments.

Skilled across Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL, with hands-on experience leading complex projects, such as multi-terabyte database consolidations and zero-downtime migrations.

Known for delivering tailored, secure, and scalable solutions, bridging technical and business teams, and driving efficiency in highly regulated industries.

Technical Skills

Make a bullet point list of your key skills, e.g., ASP / .Net, etc. Agents are most interested in these details, so make sure they stand out from the crowd. Some recruiters will receive dozens of CVs for each role.

Here is an example, based on the mythical contractor mentioned above!

  • Database Platforms: Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, AWS RDS, Azure SQL Database.
  • Performance Optimization: Query tuning, indexing strategies, high-volume transaction processing.
  • Database Design & Architecture: Data modelling, schema design, multi-terabyte database management.
  • Cloud & Migration Expertise: On-prem to cloud migrations, hybrid environments, zero-downtime strategies.
  • High-Availability Solutions: Disaster recovery planning, clustering, replication, and failover configurations.
  • Automation & Monitoring: Automated backup, monitoring tools, incident alert systems.
  • Compliance & Security: FCA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, data encryption, role-based access controls.
  • DevOps Collaboration: CI/CD pipelines for database deployments, infrastructure as code (IaC).
  • Data Warehousing: ETL processes, data lake integration, analytics-ready architecture.
  • Technical Tools: PowerShell, Bash scripting, PL/SQL, T-SQL, Python for database automation.
  • Project Leadership: Stakeholder management, cross-functional team collaboration, project delivery.
  • Soft Skills: Problem-solving, adaptability, business and technical communication, client-focused approach.

Previous Employment / Contracts

List these details with the most recent role in reverse chronological order first.

Detail your position, your role, and the skills and technology you employed in each project.

Although potential clients are most interested in technical expertise, teamwork achievements will also help, as contractors with no social skills are not highly prized, despite the stereotypes!

Here are some generic examples:

Contract Role 1
Senior Database Administrator
Global Financial Bank, London
Duration: 18 months

  • Consolidated multi-terabyte Oracle and SQL Server databases, cutting infrastructure costs by 20% and boosting performance.
  • Designed a high-availability disaster recovery solution, achieving 99.99% uptime for critical trading systems.
  • Ensured FCA and GDPR compliance through robust data governance and audit processes.

Contract Role 2
Database Migration Specialist
City Investment Partners, London
Duration: 12 months

  • Led the migration of on-premises SQL Server databases to AWS RDS, ensuring minimal downtime.
  • Developed automated monitoring systems, reducing incident response times by 40%.
  • Optimized database architecture to support AI-driven analytics, improving query performance by 25%.

Education / Qualifications

Provide a concise summary of your past degree and exam results in reverse chronological order. You can say ‘3 A Levels’ rather than providing each grade.

If you have any technical qualifications, include these, mainly if they are relevant to the role you are applying for.

Other Relevant Skills

We recommend you use this section to detail any specific skills or achievements you may have which may interest the reader.

Don’t bother listing your hobbies or school achievements, though; they could lessen the impact of the CV as a whole.

Extensive foreign travel and knowledge of foreign languages are examples worthy of mention in this section.

References

It is up to you whether you include these, as many CV ‘writers’ are split over this subject.

A potential client (via an agency or directly) can ask you later for references.

You should always ask permission from two previous clients before sending off your CV; they may not be overly impressed to be asked for a reference if they haven’t spoken with you for several years!

This is a classic reason why you should keep your LinkedIn network up-to-date.

Be accurate and careful when creating your CV

Don’t lie on your CV, but tailoring your past achievements/skills to match the IT contract requirements is worthwhile.

If you apply for a job with false information, chances are the client will find you out, and your agency could blacklist you.

Recruiters often use pre-employment checking services during the recruitment process.

Complex algorithms will cross-match submitted data with other data, including information from social networking sites.

So, not only should you be careful what personal information you upload on the web, but you should always ensure that it all matches your CV!

The future of the humble CV

Since the birth of the web decades ago, commentators have predicted the demise of the traditional CV, especially given LinkedIn’s huge penetration within the contracting industry.

However, although the format is bound to evolve over time, the critical areas of a CV—whether a Word or PDF document or part of your online profile—remain exactly the same.

You should always ensure that a potential client can quickly scan the relevant parts of your resume instantly.

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