Care assistant CV in the UK: experience, the Care Certificate, DBS checks and the 2025 visa change

First step: check that you can legally take the job

Before polishing the CV, check whether a UK care provider can employ you, because the visa rules for care work changed in July 2025. Care workers (occupation code 6135) and senior care workers (6136) can now be sponsored only in limited cases. This is the rule as it stood in the Immigration Rules, Appendix Skilled Worker, on 13 October 2026.

The provider must also qualify

For a care job in England, the sponsor must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and carrying on a regulated activity. Private households cannot sponsor a care worker. You can look a provider up on the CQC website before you apply.

Healthcare assistants use a different code

Nursing auxiliaries and assistants (6131) are a separate code that the Health and Care Worker visa lists. It is on the Immigration Salary List across the UK, but only for roles where registered nurses or other registered healthcare professionals also work, and only for a certificate of sponsorship issued before 31 December 2026. Check the code on your offer: a care home job is usually advertised as care worker, not as 6131.

How care employers hire, and what they check

The National Careers Service profile for care workers lists four ways in: a college course, an apprenticeship, volunteering, or applying directly, in which case the employer trains you on the job. It says some employers want GCSE English and maths at grades 9 to 4, but many train applicants who have the right personal qualities. It also says time spent caring for someone you know counts as experience in a caring role.

The tasks your CV should name

• Getting to know each person’s background, interests and needs.
• Help with washing, dressing and personal care.
• Preparing food, helping people eat, and making sure medication is taken where needed.
• Supporting physical and social activities.
• Routine checks of weight, temperature and blood pressure.
• Reporting concerns to senior staff, and keeping records and care plans up to date.

Those are the day-to-day tasks the profile names. Write the ones you actually did, with the setting and the number of people, so a care manager can see your level at a glance. The profile gives typical pay of £20,000 for starters to £25,000 with experience, 35 to 45 hours a week, often on shifts, evenings or weekends.

The Care Certificate

The Care Certificate is a set of 16 standards that new health and social care workers in England are expected to cover during induction. Skills for Care, NHS England and Skills for Health updated them in March 2025 and added standard 16 on learning disability and autism. The standards are recommended, not accredited; the accredited, Ofqual-regulated option is the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification, built on the same 16 standards.

1. Understand your role
2. Your personal development
3. Duty of care
4. Equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights
5. Work in a person-centred way
6. Communication
7. Privacy and dignity
8. Fluids and nutrition
9. Awareness of mental health and dementia
10. Adult safeguarding
11. Safeguarding children
12. Basic life support
13. Health and safety
14. Handling information
15. Infection prevention and control
16. Awareness of learning disability and autism

The joint FAQ says the employer signs off the certificate only when all 16 standards are complete, and that skills must be observed during real work. An online course alone is therefore not "the Care Certificate". The FAQ adds that the standards were not originally designed as pre-employment training, though some knowledge carries over; a new employer may use a self-assessment to find gaps.

DBS checks

The National Careers Service says care workers need to pass enhanced background checks. A Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) enhanced check shows spent and unspent convictions and cautions plus relevant local police information; the version with barred lists also shows whether you are barred from the role. The employer requests it.

For time spent in Türkiye, GOV.UK’s overseas criminal records guidance names the document as the Adli Sicil Kaydı. Have it ready if a provider asks for it.

Sample care experience block

Below is a block written for a UK reader. The names, numbers and dates are placeholders; keep only what is true for you. UK CVs carry no photo or date of birth, which the UK CV format page explains.

Why each line is written this way

• Setting and size first (residential, dementia, 32 beds) because care managers hire for a setting.
• Numbers per shift or per day show workload without claiming outcomes you cannot prove.
• Use the medication verb your care plan and training allowed: "prompted" and "administered" mean different things to a care manager.
• Family caring counts, according to the National Careers Service; label it as unpaid so it is not mistaken for a job.
• The Care Certificate line says who signed it off, because only the employer can.

Lines that weaken a care CV

Proof: sources and when we read them

Visa rules for care work have changed several times since 2024. Read the linked GOV.UK pages again before you rely on them.

Limits of this page

• The CQC and Care Certificate details here are for England; the other UK nations have their own arrangements, which we did not check.
• Registered nurses: NMC registration and the nurse CV are covered on the NHS nurse page.
• Sponsorship in general, the salary rules and the right-to-work line for other jobs are on the international applicants page.
• The visa file itself does not ask for a CV; the visa application page explains which UK routes do.
• Offers from abroad that promise a care worker visa now conflict with the rule above; the overseas job scams page lists the warning signs.

Next steps

1. Confirm your row in the first table, and check the provider on the CQC register.
2. List every care setting you have worked in, paid or unpaid, with dates and numbers.
3. Write down exactly which Care Certificate standards you have completed and who signed them off.
4. Find your DBS certificate number and register for the Update Service if you are still within 30 days.

CitedCV can write this CV in English with UK conventions from the settings, tasks and training you enter, and it builds each line only from those facts. It will not add a Care Certificate or DBS line you have not given it.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Immigration Rules, Appendix Skilled Workerwww.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-skilled-worker
2. GOV.UK, Health and Care Worker visa: your jobwww.gov.uk/health-care-worker-visa/your-job
3. Immigration Rules, Appendix Immigration Salary Listwww.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-immigration-salary-list
4. National Careers Service, Care workernationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/care-worker
5. Skills for Care, Care Certificate standardswww.skillsforcare.org.uk/Developing-your-workforce/Care-Certificate/Care-Certificate-standards.aspx
6. Care Certificate standards 2025: questions and answers (NHS England, Skills for Care, Skills for Health)www.skillsforcare.org.uk/resources/documents/Developing-your-workforce/Care-Certificate/Care-Certificate-Standards/Care-Certificate-standards-FAQs.pdf
7. GOV.UK, Check someone’s criminal recordwww.gov.uk/dbs-check-applicant-criminal-record
8. GOV.UK, DBS Update Servicewww.gov.uk/dbs-update-service
9. GOV.UK, Criminal records checks for overseas applicantswww.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants
10. Care Quality Commissionwww.cqc.org.uk/