The skills UK graduate jobs actually ask for
Most advice about what to put on a CV is somebody's opinion about what employers want. This is a count. We read 12,914 live UK graduate job adverts and recorded which skills they name. Teamwork appears in 55.7% of them.
12,914 adverts countedCounted 5 November 2026Free to cite, with a link
The ten most asked for
Every skill we counted
| Skill | Share of adverts | Adverts |
|---|---|---|
| Teamwork | 55.7% | 7,195 |
| Communication skills | 28.6% | 3,690 |
| Problem solving | 24% | 3,104 |
| Initiative | 19.2% | 2,475 |
| Attention to detail | 19.1% | 2,473 |
| Customer service | 15.2% | 1,961 |
| Microsoft Excel | 13.4% | 1,731 |
| Analytical skills | 9% | 1,168 |
| Python | 8.9% | 1,153 |
| Project management | 8.9% | 1,148 |
| Adaptability | 8.8% | 1,139 |
| Organisation | 8.3% | 1,068 |
| Stakeholder management | 6.5% | 843 |
| Written communication | 6% | 769 |
| Time management | 5.9% | 756 |
| Commercial awareness | 4.3% | 553 |
| SQL | 4.1% | 530 |
| AWS or Azure | 4% | 519 |
| Machine learning | 3.4% | 444 |
| Leadership | 3.2% | 416 |
| Git | 2.7% | 348 |
| CAD | 2.3% | 301 |
| Revit | 2.2% | 278 |
| AutoCAD | 2.1% | 276 |
| Numeracy | 2.1% | 274 |
| Power BI | 2.1% | 273 |
| Linux | 2% | 264 |
| JavaScript | 2% | 262 |
| Docker or Kubernetes | 2% | 252 |
| Salesforce | 1.8% | 235 |
| Java | 1.7% | 223 |
| SAP | 1.6% | 210 |
| Presentation skills | 1.6% | 207 |
| React | 1.2% | 149 |
| Adobe Creative Suite | 0.9% | 113 |
| Risk modelling | 0.9% | 111 |
| Finite element analysis | 0.7% | 90 |
| SEO | 0.7% | 87 |
| Tableau | 0.7% | 85 |
| HTML and CSS | 0.6% | 80 |
| MATLAB | 0.6% | 79 |
| GLP or GMP | 0.5% | 60 |
| Figma | 0.4% | 53 |
| SolidWorks | 0.3% | 34 |
| Laboratory technique | 0.2% | 29 |
| Google Analytics | 0.2% | 20 |
| Xero or Sage | 0.1% | 18 |
| R | 0.1% | 9 |
| C# | 0.1% | 8 |
| C++ | 0% | 4 |
What this table does not mean
It does not mean you should write "teamwork" at the top of your CV. 55.7% of adverts ask for it, and close to every graduate CV already claims it. A skill that common is the price of entry, not a way of standing out — naming it tells a recruiter nothing they were not already assuming.
The top of this list is what to evidence. The bottom is what to state.
Teamwork, communication and problem solving are claimed by everyone and demonstrated by few, so they belong in the sentences describing what you did — the project, the number of people, what changed because you were there. Nobody can check "excellent communicator". Everybody can picture "presented monthly figures to a team of nine".
The skills lower down the table work the opposite way. They are checkable, which makes them worth naming plainly: Microsoft Excel (13.4%), Python (8.9%), Project management (8.9%), Stakeholder management (6.5%), Commercial awareness (4.3%) and SQL (4.1%). A recruiter scanning for one of these is scanning for the word. If you have it, say it; if you do not, no adjective will cover the gap.
What evidencing one actually looks like
Five pairs. The first line in each is roughly what a recruiter reads twenty times a morning. The second makes the same claim in a way somebody could ask you about.
Teamworkasked for in 55.7% of adverts
A strong team player with excellent interpersonal skills.
Took over coordination of a five-person group project after two people dropped the module. Split the remaining work by what each of us was fastest at rather than evenly, and we submitted two days early.
“Team player” is an adjective about you. The second is a situation with a decision in it, and the decision is the part that reads as teamwork — anybody can be in a group.
Communication skillsasked for in 28.6% of adverts
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Explained declined payments to around 40 customers a week on a supermarket service desk, and wrote the one-page crib sheet the weekend staff still use.
A number, an audience, and something that outlived the shift. The crib sheet is the proof: somebody else found your explanation clear enough to reuse.
Problem solvingasked for in 24% of adverts
Proven problem-solving ability with a logical approach.
Our society kept double-selling event tickets because three of us were editing the same list. Moved it to one shared sheet with a single approver, and we did not oversell again.
Problem, what you changed, what stopped happening — three clauses. The problem does not have to be big. It has to be real.
Attention to detailasked for in 19.1% of adverts
Meticulous attention to detail.
Cleaned 340 survey responses for my dissertation and found 19 duplicates that would have moved the headline figure by about four points.
“Meticulous” invites no questions. “19 duplicates” invites exactly one, and it is one you can answer for two minutes in an interview.
Initiativeasked for in 19.2% of adverts
A proactive self-starter who uses initiative.
Nobody could say why closing shifts always ran twenty minutes late, so I timed each step for a fortnight. The handover was the bottleneck; we moved it earlier and the overruns stopped.
Initiative reads as noticing something nobody asked you to notice. The fortnight of timing is what makes it believable rather than a claim.
And the ones you just state
The skills further down the table invert the advice. Nobody needs a story about Excel — they need to know whether you can use it.
Proficient in Microsoft Office and various programming languages.
“Proficient” is unverifiable and everybody writes it. Naming the functions is checkable, and the thing you built with them is the evidence. A recruiter filtering for Excel is searching for the word — give them the word and then a reason to believe it.
Where each kind goes on the page
The skills list is for checkable things. Software, languages, tools, certifications, driving licence. It gets scanned in about the time it takes to read it, so it should be short and every item should be a noun somebody could test you on.
Everything else belongs under the experience. Teamwork, communication, problem solving and attention to detail are demonstrated by the bullets under a job, a project or a society role — not announced at the top. Writing "teamwork" in a list and nothing else is the most common graduate CV mistake, and it costs a line to say something the reader had already assumed.
If the advert names a skill, use its words. Not as keyword stuffing — because an advert asking for "stakeholder engagement" and a CV offering "worked with lots of departments" are describing the same thing to a human and different things to the software that screens the first pass.
If you think you have none of these
Most people writing a first CV assume the list above describes a career they have not had. It mostly describes things they have already done and have not thought of as experience.
A group project is teamwork under a deadline with no authority over anyone — which is harder than the version on most job descriptions. A part-time retail or hospitality shift is customer service, named outright in 15.2% of adverts, plus working under pressure and handing over cleanly. A committee role on a society is budgeting, scheduling and persuading volunteers who can leave whenever they like.
None of that is padding. It is the same skill in a smaller room, and the sentence that proves it is built the same way: what the situation was, what you decided, what changed.
It changes a lot by sector
The generic skills stay generic everywhere. The specific ones move enormously, which is the practical reason to tailor a CV rather than send one. Python is named in 8.9% of adverts overall and 48.1% of Data ones.
Engineering
3,219 adverts counted
- Teamwork61.9%
- Communication skills29.5%
- Problem solving27.6%
- Initiative16.7%
- Attention to detail12.1%
- Project management10.8%
Technology
1,530 adverts counted
- Teamwork69.8%
- Problem solving35.9%
- Python34.9%
- Communication skills28.4%
- AWS or Azure24.2%
- Git16.9%
Marketing
1,124 adverts counted
- Teamwork59.3%
- Communication skills29.7%
- Initiative28.4%
- Attention to detail19.2%
- Customer service17.5%
- Project management16.1%
Business
1,025 adverts counted
- Teamwork47%
- Communication skills41.3%
- Attention to detail39.4%
- Initiative32.8%
- Microsoft Excel28.1%
- Organisation23.9%
Finance
969 adverts counted
- Teamwork63.5%
- Communication skills36.2%
- Problem solving28.8%
- Attention to detail26.1%
- Microsoft Excel23.6%
- Initiative20.6%
Data
695 adverts counted
- Teamwork63.5%
- Python48.1%
- Problem solving33.7%
- Machine learning28.6%
- SQL26.5%
- Communication skills25.6%
Accounting
610 adverts counted
- Teamwork63.4%
- Adaptability30.8%
- Problem solving27%
- Attention to detail25.9%
- Communication skills23.9%
- Customer service18.9%
Construction
575 adverts counted
- Teamwork59.8%
- Communication skills29.7%
- Microsoft Excel23.3%
- Initiative22.4%
- Attention to detail19.3%
- Project management18.3%
Supply Chain
554 adverts counted
- Teamwork62.6%
- Communication skills38.8%
- Attention to detail29.4%
- Initiative27.1%
- Problem solving25.8%
- Microsoft Excel24%
Retail
552 adverts counted
- Customer service19.4%
- Teamwork16.8%
- Communication skills12.3%
- Attention to detail9.8%
- Problem solving9.6%
- Microsoft Excel7.8%
Consulting
507 adverts counted
- Teamwork75.3%
- Problem solving38.1%
- Communication skills31.2%
- Customer service24.1%
- Initiative18.9%
- Project management16.4%
Healthcare
501 adverts counted
- Teamwork43.3%
- Communication skills15.6%
- Problem solving14.6%
- Attention to detail13.4%
- Initiative5.6%
- Time management4.4%
Education
392 adverts counted
- Teamwork35.7%
- Customer service18.6%
- Adaptability18.1%
- Initiative13.5%
- Communication skills12%
- Attention to detail11.2%
Science
290 adverts counted
- Teamwork59.7%
- Problem solving26.9%
- Attention to detail22.4%
- Communication skills22.1%
- Analytical skills9.3%
- Python9.3%
Legal
241 adverts counted
- Teamwork48.5%
- Attention to detail22.8%
- Customer service22%
- Communication skills18.3%
- Initiative16.6%
- Problem solving15.8%
Creative
215 adverts counted
- Teamwork71.2%
- Attention to detail31.2%
- Communication skills29.3%
- Initiative29.3%
- Adobe Creative Suite23.7%
- Organisation20.9%
Logistics
196 adverts counted
- Teamwork55.6%
- Communication skills40.8%
- Customer service24.5%
- Microsoft Excel23.5%
- Problem solving23.5%
- Initiative20.4%
Method, and what this does not show
Every night we read UK employers' own careers pages — their job boards, not an aggregator. On 5 November 2026 we took the 12,914 live graduate, entry-level, placement, internship and apprenticeship adverts that carried a real description, and searched each one for the skills above.
It counts what adverts say, not what employers decide on. An advert naming a skill is evidence that somebody thought it worth writing down. It is not evidence that it decides who gets hired, and the two are not the same thing.
Phrasing is matched, so phrasing is missed. We count a skill when the advert names it — "attention to detail", "works well in a team". An advert that describes the same quality in words we did not anticipate is counted as not asking for it, so every figure here is a floor rather than a ceiling.
The patterns are deliberately strict, because a looser draft was badly wrong. Counting every mention of "leadership" gave 1,024 adverts; counting only those asking for leadership skills gave 195. Counting "flexibility" swept in the 1,097 adverts offering flexible working, which is a perk rather than a skill. Where a term was ambiguous we chose the narrower reading.
Counted on 5 November 2026 and recounted as the feed changes. Journalists, careers services and students are welcome to quote any of it — a link back is all we ask, and we will happily run a cut of the data you need. Get in touch.
You are probably writing one right now
Doing this properly for every advert is the part that takes the evening. Gradovio rewrites your CV against the specific advert you are applying to — the same facts, reordered and worded for what that employer asked for — then drafts the cover letter and fills the application form on the employer's own site.
Start a free trial — 13,277 live graduate roles to point it at.
Want to know which of these your own CV already names? Paste it into the skills checker— it runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.
Naming the right skills only helps if the file can be read. Check yours against an employer's screening software, free, no account.
More, counted the same way: cover letters, writing a CV with no experience, how long a CV should be and the personal profile. The same competencies come up again in competency-based interviews, where they are scored rather than scanned.
Next: what UK graduate jobs pay, taken from the same adverts, and how many of them say so at all.