How to List Side Projects on Your UK CV (2026)

Why this matters

Side projects on UK CVs are most valuable for career changers, junior candidates, and tech roles where the work shows ability beyond formal employment. The candidates who include the right projects get extra credibility; those who include half-finished tutorials weaken their CVs. The line between substantive side project and CV padding matters.

Exact steps

1. 1 Create a separate 'Projects' or 'Side Projects' section
2. 2 Include 2-3 substantive projects only — original work, shipped publicly, with measurable outcomes
3. 3 Format each: project name, brief one-line description, technologies, outcomes, link
4. 4 Quantify outcomes where possible: users, GitHub stars, contributions, downloads
5. 5 Skip tutorial completions, half-finished prototypes, course exercises
6. 6 Link to live URL or GitHub repo where possible
7. 7 For senior candidates, fewer projects is better — quality over quantity

What good looks like

Projects

Rate-Limit-Go (github.com/sarah-chen/rate-limit-go)
Open-source rate-limiting library for Go services. 280+ GitHub stars, 4 active contributors, used by 12 production systems based on issue tracker.
Tech: Go, Redis, gRPC.

Notion Lite (notionlite.app)
Mobile note-taking app I built to learn React Native. 240+ App Store downloads, 4.4-star rating from 28 reviews.
Tech: React Native, Expo, Firebase.

What bad looks like

Projects

• Personal blog (built with WordPress)
• Calculator app (Python tutorial)
• Various coding challenges from LeetCode
• To-do list app (followed YouTube tutorial)

Common mistakes

• ✗Tutorial completions framed as projects — flags padded CV
• ✗Half-finished prototypes without shipped output
• ✗Vague descriptions without specific technologies or outcomes
• ✗No link to GitHub or live URL
• ✗Including 8-10 projects — dilutes the strong ones