|October 28, 2026
How Much Does a Professional CV Writing Service Cost?
Summary: The cost of CV writing services in the UK ranges from around £50 to several hundred pounds Career level... Read more...
So, you’ve decided your CV needs some work. It’s not uncommon to simply find yourself adding jobs to the same document for the last decade.
Or perhaps, you’re regularly applying for roles, but interviews don’t follow. Or perhaps it’s the terrifying fear of the blank Word document staring back at you.
This is where professional CV writing can help.
It should involve much more than fixing a few spelling mistakes and making the headings look smarter. A CV writer needs to understand where you’ve been in your career, what you’ve achieved and, just as importantly, where you want to go next.
Exactly how the process works will depend on the service you choose. You might submit your current CV, answer questions about your career or speak directly to the writer.
It’s worth checking this before you pay. “Professional CV writing” can mean different things to different companies.
Think about the CV you wrote when you first started working. Chances are, finding enough to put on it was the difficult bit.
An early-career candidate will often need to draw on education, placements, voluntary work and part-time jobs. Down the line, you’re far more likely to have the opposite problem.
Deciding what ought to stay isn’t always straightforward and a neutral perspective from a career expert can be helpful.
That role from 12 years ago probably doesn’t need half a page anymore. Meanwhile, the promotion you received last year deserves more than the two lines you quickly added on a Sunday evening.
A professional writer should be able to make those calls.
Keep in mind that different job roles can require different approaches, even if there are transferable skills. It needs to make sense for your career direction, with the CV tailored to the job description too.
Here’s a classic CV line:
Everyone has seen that before – and wondered what it actually means.
Were there three people in the team or 30? Did you recruit anyone, train new starters or help the team hit a difficult target?
That’s the information a professional writer should try to tease out.
We often don’t notice our own achievements because we’re too close to them. Something you’ve done every Monday morning for three years might feel completely ordinary to you.
To a recruiter, it could be exactly the experience they’re looking for.
There’s a limit, of course. No writer should ever make up figures, exaggerate your responsibilities or turn something you helped with into a project you supposedly ran single-handedly.
You still need to recognise yourself when you read the finished CV key achievements.
You’ve probably heard of ATS if you’ve spent any time reading CV advice. If not, ATS stands for applicant tracking system.
Employers use these systems to help manage applications, which means the way your CV is written and formatted can matter before a recruiter starts reading it. Relevant keywords form part of this.
If a job advert asks for stakeholder management and you have plenty of stakeholder management experience, it makes sense to use that terminology in your CV. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?
The mistake is going too far and stuffing the document with every keyword you can find. A nuanced approach to optimising your CV for ATS software is key.
Need more than a CV?
Many professional services also offer cover letters and LinkedIn profile writing, either separately or as part of a package. Whether you need those extras depends on what shape they’re already in.
Let’s be honest, if your LinkedIn profile still describes you as “excited to begin” the job you’ve now been doing for seven years, an update is likely on the cards.
Here’s how to add a promotion on LinkedIn and a guide to updating your LinkedIn headline.
You may also want help with cover letters if you find yourself staring at the opening sentence for half an hour every time you apply for something.
That being said, don’t buy extras simply because they’re there. Start with what you actually need – not all applications may need the full suite of application extras.
There are plenty of CV writing services out there, so how do you choose between them?
A simple question is a good place to start: Who is actually writing my CV?
Ask if you’ll have access to your writer and consider how they learn about your career. If they need more information, can they ask you for it?
The communication process is key. Next, check the approach to revisions.
The first draft may remind you of something you’ve forgotten to mention. Or perhaps the writer has misunderstood one part of your old role.
Don’t forget to check turnaround times, whether the CV is written with ATS in mind and whether the company uses standardised templates. The term “professional CV writing” isn’t a one-size-fits-all service.
Above all else, make sure that their previous customers were happy and got value for money.
You can do that by looking at their Google reviews, Trustpilot reviews, or equivalent. You want to see more than just a few 5-star reviews though, ideally there should be hundreds (or thousands) if they’ve been providing CV writing services for several years.
So, what do you get when you order from PurpleCV?
For starters, you can submit your old CV when you order. It doesn’t need to be perfect.
It doesn’t even need to be particularly recent. Giving your writer your existing CV provides a useful starting point for understanding your career.
You’ll also get access to your own professional CV writer. That’s important to us.
PurpleCV doesn’t use templates or AI to produce your CV. Your writer creates it around your own experience rather than feeding your details into a standard document.
Of course, being aware of automated systems is important, though. As such, we ensure your CV is ATS-friendly (i.e. written with applicant tracking systems in mind) as well as written with the end hiring manager or recruiter in mind.
PurpleCV offers a two-day turnaround, with an even quicker express service also available, typically delivering the new CV within 24 hours.
Unlike many professional CV writing services, we offer free lifetime CV amendments. You can come back to us when things change and your next application looms.
PurpleCV also offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, plus free job alerts to help when you’re ready to start sending that new CV out.
In other words, we’re not interested in simply making your old CV look a bit nicer and sending you on your way. We’re here for your career journey.
And how much does our professional CV writing service cost? Prices currently start at just £50!
If you found this guide useful, you may also like some of our most popular articles, including:
A professional CV writing service should do more than tidy up what you’ve already written.
A good writer needs to work out what matters. They will have a knack for identifying an achievement you’ve overlooked, be confident in cutting that old job that’s lingered on your resume for far too long and crucially, be able to understand the direction you want to take your career in.
Before choosing a service, check who’s writing your CV, whether you can request changes, how quickly you’ll receive it and what else comes with the price.
PurpleCV provides you with your own professional writer. You’ll also get free lifetime amendments, free job alerts, a two-day turnaround and our 100% satisfaction guarantee.
We currently have a 4.8/5.0 rating on both Trustpilot and Google, having received thousands of reviews.
We are members of the Professional Association of Resume Writers & Career Coaches (PARWCC), plus our founder Andrew Arkley is Chairman and Programme Director of its Certified Professional CV Writer (CCVW) qualification.
Your CV has a fairly important job to do, so it’s worth getting it right. For any queries about our CV writing services or anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
