The short version: The best free resume templates for most careers sit in Google Docs, Microsoft Word’s built-in gallery, and Canva, while creative and specialist careers are usually better served by industry association sites, university career centres, or a template built from scratch to match how that field hires. The template itself matters far less than most job seekers think; what gets you an interview is the content, the keywords, and whether a human can find what they need in the first seven seconds of looking.
Related reading: How to Start a Career as a Remote Graphic Designer in 2026.
Start with the free ones you already have access to
Before you go hunting for a “best resume template for accountants” download that turns out to be a lead magnet for someone’s email list, check what’s already sitting on your computer or in your Google account.
Google Docs has around 15 built-in resume templates under File, then New, then From template gallery. They’re plain, they’re free, they’re editable in seconds, and recruiters can open them without formatting breaking on a different screen. I’ve written a full breakdown of which ones are worth using in my piece on whether Google Docs has free resume templates you can use, and the short answer is yes, they’re fine for most office, admin, retail, hospitality, and entry-level tech roles.
Microsoft Word has a similar built-in gallery (File, then New, then search “resume”), plus a much bigger catalogue at Microsoft’s own Create page if you’re a Microsoft 365 subscriber. If you already pay for Word, use it. There’s no reason to sign up for a third-party site when the tool on your desktop already has 40-odd designs sorted by industry.
Design-led templates: Canva, Novoresume, Zety
If you want something with more visual polish, three names come up constantly and for good reason.
- Canva has hundreds of free resume templates and a paid Pro tier at roughly £10 to £12 a month (around £100 a year) that unlocks premium fonts and one-click resizing. Good for creative, marketing, and design careers where a bit of visual flair is expected.
- Novoresume gives you one free template with one page; anything beyond that sits behind a paid plan at around $19.99 a month. Clean, ATS-friendly, good for corporate and tech roles.
- Zety hooks you with a $2.70 14-day trial that renews at roughly $24.70 a month if you forget to cancel. I mention the price deliberately because I’ve had clients get caught out by it more than once. Cancel the day you download your PDF.
All three sort templates by career type, which is the fastest way to browse without scrolling for twenty minutes.
Career-specific and industry sources
General template sites give you a shape. For some careers you need a source that understands the field, not just the layout.
For creative careers (design, photography, copywriting, architecture), look at Behance and Dribbble, where working professionals post their actual CVs and portfolios alongside their work. You’re not downloading a template, you’re studying real examples from people who got hired doing what you want to do. That’s more useful than any template, honestly.
For academic and research careers, university career services publish CV formats specific to that world, where publications, grants, and teaching experience sit above work history rather than below it. A standard chronological template will make an academic CV look wrong to anyone who’s hired in that world before.
For trades and technical careers (electricians, plumbers, HGV drivers, engineers), the format that matters most is one that leads with certifications and licences, not a two-line summary paragraph. Trade bodies and apprenticeship schemes often publish sample CVs built exactly for this, and they’re worth more than a generic download because they know what the hiring manager on the other end checks first.
For freelance and contract careers, the whole format changes again. You’re not selling continuous employment, you’re selling outcomes for named clients, so a traditional chronological resume template usually works against you. I go into this in how to get a freelance job without applying to 100 listings and failing, and one of the points I make there is that the resume matters less than a tight portfolio with three named results.
For virtual assistant and remote admin roles, employers are usually screening for reliability and specific software skills rather than career progression, so a skills-first template beats a chronological one almost every time. If you’re on the hiring side of this rather than the applicant side, my guide on writing a virtual assistant job posting that attracts competent people shows what those hiring managers are scanning for, which tells you exactly what to put at the top of your own VA resume. And if you’re weighing up the role itself before you build the CV, what an employment virtual assistant job pays and requires is worth reading first.
Government and university sites (underused and free)
The most overlooked source is the public sector. The UK’s government CV and covering letter guidance is free, has no upsell, no email gate, and is written by people whose entire job is helping people get hired, not selling software subscriptions. It’s plain, it’s boring, and it’s reliable, which is exactly what you want when you’re applying for a role you need.
University careers services, even ones you didn’t attend, often publish sample CVs by discipline for free, because they’re aimed at students and there’s no commercial reason to hide them behind a paywall. Search “[your target career] CV example site:.edu” or “site:.ac.uk” and you’ll find specific examples, not generic ones.
The bit nobody tells you about templates
Here’s the uncomfortable truth most articles on this topic skip entirely: the template matters much less than the anxiety around it suggests.
Recruiters spend an average of seven seconds on the first scan of a CV, according to research from Ladders’ eye-tracking study of professional recruiters. Seven seconds isn’t enough time to admire your font choice. It’s enough time to check your job title, your most recent employer, and whether the page looks like it was made by a competent adult. That’s it. A free Google Docs template does that job exactly as well as a £15 premium download from a design site.
I once had a client, a warehouse operations manager called Dave, who spent three evenings comparing template sites, downloaded a paid one with a coloured sidebar and a photo, and got zero replies over six weeks. We sat down, put his experience into a plain two-column Google Docs template, moved his forklift and inventory-system certifications to the top instead of burying them under a “hobbies” section, and he had two interviews within nine days. The template changed from “nice” to “plain.” What moved the needle was cutting his job description paragraphs down from six lines each to two, and naming the exact software he’d used (SAP, not “inventory management systems”). The design was never the problem. The content was vague, and vague content doesn’t survive seven seconds of scanning no matter what colour the sidebar is.
The other thing worth saying plainly: most small and medium employers don’t run your CV through an applicant tracking system at all. ATS obsession is largely a large-corporate and recruitment-agency phenomenon. If you’re applying to a 40-person marketing agency or a local accountancy firm, a human is reading your CV directly, and formatting it purely to beat imaginary software is often wasted effort that makes the document less readable for the person holding it.
Which format to pick before you even choose a template
Before you touch a template site, decide on format, because that decision shapes which templates are even relevant to you.
- Chronological, listing jobs newest first, works best if you’ve had steady progression in one field. I’ve written a detailed breakdown of what to check for in choosing a chronological resume template, including the specific formatting mistakes that make an otherwise good chronological CV get skipped.
- Functional or skills-based, grouping by skill rather than job, works better if you’ve changed careers, had gaps, or are freelance.
- Hybrid, a short skills summary at the top followed by a chronological history, is the safest default for most people and is what the majority of modern free templates default to anyway.
Step by step: finding and adapting the right one
- Decide your format first (chronological, functional, or hybrid) based on your career history, not on which template looks nicest.
- Search by career, not by “best resume template.” Try “[job title] resume example” rather than generic terms; you’ll find real ones from people in that exact field.
- Check three sources minimum: one general (Google Docs or Word), one design-led (Canva or similar), and one specific to your industry or a.edu/.gov source.
- Pick the plainest one you can stand. If in doubt, choose the version with less design, not more. Fewer colours, fewer icons, fewer graphics that confuse a scanner or a tired recruiter at 4pm on a Friday.
- Spend your actual time on content, not layout. Rewrite every bullet to include a number: sales grew 18 percent, managed a team of 6, processed 200 orders a week. Numbers survive the seven-second scan; adjectives don’t.
A quick note if you’re the one hiring, not applying
If you found this because you’re building a template to send to candidates or standardising CVs across a small team, the template question usually leads to a bigger one: what should this role pay, and how do you make sure the CV you’re screening reflects it fairly. That question is worth its own read, and I cover it in five ways to decide how much to pay an employee, which is the natural next step once you’ve sorted the paperwork side.
Frequently asked questions
Is it bad to use a free resume template that a lot of other people also use?
No. Recruiters see the same handful of Google Docs and Word templates constantly and don’t hold it against you, because they’re judging your experience and your fit for the role, not your template originality. The content is what needs to be distinct, not the layout.
Should I pay for a premium resume template?
Only if you’re in a design-led field like marketing, branding, or UX where visual presentation is itself part of the evidence you’re competent at design. For most careers, a free Google Docs or Word template does the same job as a £20 paid download.
Where can I find resume templates for a career change or a gap in employment?
Look for functional or hybrid templates specifically, usually labelled “skills-based” on Canva, Novoresume, or Zety, since chronological templates highlight gaps rather than hide them.
Do employers check what template I used?
No, they check whether they can find your job titles, dates, and relevant skills within a few seconds. The template only matters if it’s so cluttered or oddly formatted that it slows that scan down, which is more often a problem with heavily designed templates than plain ones.
Related reading: How to Pick a Resume Template That Suits a Nursing Career and The Best Resume Template for a Career Change in 2026 (and the One Everyone Gets Wrong).
