Keyword stuffing died in 2024. The Workday, Greenhouse, iCIMS, and SmartRecruiters platforms that handle the bulk of UK applications in 2026 all use frequency-vs-context scoring — they reward keywords used in sentences, and penalise CVs that just list them.
This guide shows what actually works, with side-by-side rewrites for four real UK roles: care assistant, electrician, accountant, and software engineer.
The 30-second answer
For every keyword in the job description, you want it once in your skills block and once in context in a role bullet. Two mentions, one as a label, one as a sentence. That is the configuration modern ATS systems score highest.
How an ATS actually ranks your CV
Three signals dominate scoring:
- Term frequency in context — the same keyword inside a sentence beats the same keyword in a list, every time.
- Section weighting — keywords in the "Skills" and "Experience" sections score higher than keywords in the personal summary, which scores higher than keywords in "Hobbies".
- Recency — a keyword from your most recent role outranks the same keyword from a role 8 years ago.
Before / after: care assistant
Before — keywords listed but never used:
Skills: safeguarding, medication, manual handling, person-centred care.
After — keywords listed AND used in context:
Skills: safeguarding, medication administration, manual handling, person-centred care.
Care Assistant — Sunrise Care Home (Sep 2023 – present)
• Delivered person-centred care to 12 residents with dementia, leading on care planning reviews every 6 weeks.
• Administered medication in line with NMC standards; zero medication errors across 14 months.
• Completed safeguarding referrals as designated link worker; trained 4 new starters in manual handling.
Every keyword from the skills block reappears inside a real sentence. ATS systems reward this pattern.
Before / after: electrician
Before:
Qualifications: 18th Edition, NVQ 3, CSCS.
After:
Qualifications: 18th Edition Wiring Regulations (BS 7671), NVQ Level 3 Electrotechnical, CSCS Gold Card, City & Guilds 2391 Inspection & Testing.
Approved Electrician — Mitie Facilities (Mar 2022 – present)
• Completed inspection and testing on 80+ commercial sites under 18th Edition; issued EICRs with zero re-work flags.
• Carried out fault finding on three-phase distribution boards across NHS estate; reduced repeat call-outs by 22%.
• Hold CSCS Gold Card and pass commercial DBS for healthcare-site work.
Before / after: accountant
Before:
Skills: VAT, year end, Xero, reconciliations.
After:
Skills: VAT returns, year-end accounts (FRS 102), Xero, bank reconciliations, payroll, management accounts.
Assistant Accountant — Greenbridge Ltd (Jun 2023 – present)
• Owned month-end close: bank reconciliations, accruals, prepayments, balance-sheet review — 5-day close to TB.
• Prepared and submitted quarterly VAT returns for 4 group companies; HMRC enquiry-free since 2024.
• Year-end accounts in Xero under FRS 102; supported external audit with zero adjustments.
Before / after: software engineer
Before:
Stack: React, TypeScript, AWS, PostgreSQL.
After:
Stack: TypeScript, React 19, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS (ECS, RDS, S3), Docker, CI/CD with GitHub Actions, observability with Datadog.
Senior Engineer — Brightline Tech (Jan 2024 – present)
• Led migration of a Node.js monolith to AWS ECS; reduced P95 latency on the checkout flow from 820ms to 240ms.
• Owned the PostgreSQL schema for a 2.4M-row orders table; added partial indexes that cut peak read time by 70%.
• Set up CI/CD with GitHub Actions and Docker; reduced deploy time from 18 minutes to 4.
The single most common ATS mistake in 2026
Three-column layouts. Most parsers read columns left-to-right, top-to-bottom — so a two-column "skills | experience" layout splits a single role across the page and the parser can't reassemble it. Use a single-column structure. You can keep visual hierarchy with bold, spacing, and dividers.
Final checklist
- Pull the 8–12 most repeated nouns from the job description. These are your target keywords.
- Add them once in your skills section, exactly as written in the JD.
- Use each one in a sentence inside a role bullet (most recent role first).
- Strip three-column layouts; switch to single column.
- Save as PDF (not Pages, not Word .doc, not text-in-image).
Atlas does step 1–3 automatically per job — so if you would rather not hand-rewrite, just upload your CV and the system tailors a version for each role you apply to.