By Carly McDermott, Founder, Calibrate Recruitment. Nearly two decades recruiting bids, marketing, design and support talent for AJ100 practices and built environment consultancies.
Published: 29 September 2026
The short answer
A job advert is the public, marketing facing version of a role. It is what a candidate reads before they decide whether to apply. A strong UK job advert template has nine parts: job title, location and working pattern, salary or salary range, a two line hook, what the role actually involves, the essential skills, the nice to haves, the benefits, and a simple instruction on how to apply.
The most important change for 2026 is pay. The government is currently consulting on making salary information in job adverts a statutory requirement. That consultation closes at 5pm on 27 October 2026. If you are still writing “competitive salary” in your adverts, now is a good moment to stop.
Below you will find a free job advert template you can copy and paste, plus three worked examples for the support roles we fill most often in the built environment: bid coordinator, document controller and marketing coordinator.
What is a job advert?
A job advert is a short, persuasive summary of a vacancy that is published to attract applicants. It is written for candidates, in plain language, and its only job is to get the right people to click apply and the wrong people to move on.
That sounds obvious, but it is where most practices go wrong. They take the internal job description, paste it into LinkedIn, and wonder why they got forty applications and none of them were right.
Job advert vs job description: what is the difference?
These two documents get used interchangeably and they should not be. They have different readers and different purposes.
| Job advert | Job description | |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Candidates who have never heard of you | Internal: HR, the hiring manager, the person in post |
| Purpose | Attract and filter applicants | Define scope, accountability and performance |
| Length | 300 to 500 words | 800 to 1,500 words |
| Tone | Marketing. Warm, specific, benefit led | Formal, structured, exhaustive |
| Lives where | Job boards, LinkedIn, your careers page | HR file, contract pack, appraisal process |
| Lifespan | Weeks | Years |
The advert is the trailer. The job description is the film. You need both, and you should write the job description first so that the advert has something true to pull from. If you need a starting point for the longer document, our document controller job description template shows the level of detail we would expect for a technical support role.
What should a job advert include? The nine part checklist
- Job title. Use the title candidates search for, not your internal one. “Bid Coordinator” gets searched. “Work Winning Executive, Grade 4” does not.
- Location and working pattern. Say the city, say the number of office days, say it in the first three lines. Hybrid arrangements are the single most common reason a good candidate drops out at offer stage.
- Salary or salary range. More on this below, but the short version is: include it.
- The hook. Two or three sentences on why this practice and this role. Not your company boilerplate. Something specific.
- What the role involves. Six to eight bullets, written as actions, not responsibilities.
- Essential skills. Keep this to five or six. Every extra “essential” you add shrinks your applicant pool and disproportionately deters women and candidates from underrepresented backgrounds, who tend to self select out unless they meet nearly all criteria.
- Nice to haves. Label them clearly. This is where software, sector experience and certifications belong.
- Benefits. Pension percentage, holiday including any Christmas closure, professional subscriptions, study support, bonus structure.
- How to apply and what happens next. Give a deadline and a process. “Two stage interview, first conversation within ten days” removes a huge amount of candidate anxiety.
The free job advert template
Copy this, fill in the brackets, delete anything that does not apply.
[Job Title]
[City], [X] days in the studio, [X] days from home
£[lower] to £[upper] depending on experience, plus [key benefit]
[One sentence on the practice: sector, size, the kind of work you are known for.] [One sentence on why this role exists right now: growth, a new framework, a retirement, a restructure.]
What you will be doing
- [Action verb, deliverable, and who you work with]
- [Repeat, six to eight times]
What we are looking for
- [Essential skill, phrased as experience not as a qualification]
- [Maximum of five or six]
Nice to have
- [Software, sector, certification]
What you get
- £[salary range]
- [number] days holiday plus bank holidays, [plus any studio closure]
- [Pension contribution as a percentage]
- [Professional subscriptions, training budget, study support]
- [Anything genuinely unusual about working here]
How to apply
Send a CV to [contact] by [date]. We will come back to everyone within [X] working days. The process is [number] stages: [describe them].
Job advert examples for built environment support roles
Generic templates produce generic adverts. Here is the same template applied to three real role types, with the lines that actually do the work.
Example 1: Bid Coordinator, mid sized London practice
Bid Coordinator
Clerkenwell, London. Three days in the studio, two from home.
£38,000 to £45,000 depending on experience, plus 6% pension and your ARB or CIOB subscription paid.
We are a 90 person practice working mostly in education and residential, and we are on four public frameworks that keep us busy. Our bid team is two people and about to be three. That is you.
What you will be doing
- Owning the PQQ and ITT timetable for three to five live submissions at a time
- Pulling technical content out of project architects who are, frankly, busy
- Keeping the CV, project sheet and accreditation library current so we are not rebuilding it every Friday night
- Working with our graphic designer on submission layout in InDesign
Note what that does. It names the sector, gives a real team size, admits a real frustration that every bid coordinator recognises, and tells them exactly what they are walking into. If you want to sense check the level you are pitching at, our bid coordinator salary guide for 2026 shows what practices are actually paying, and our breakdown of bid coordinator vs bid writer vs bid manager will help you confirm you are advertising the right role in the first place.
Example 2: Document Controller, multidisciplinary consultancy
The line that matters most here is the systems line. Document controllers search by platform.
What we are looking for
- Two years or more running document control on live construction projects
- Hands on experience with Asite, Aconex or Viewpoint. We use Asite.
- Working knowledge of ISO 19650 naming conventions and revision control
- Comfortable telling a project director that their drawing has not been issued correctly
That last bullet is doing real work. It signals that the role has authority, which is the single thing experienced document controllers care most about. Pay expectations vary widely by region and contract type, so it is worth checking our document controller salary benchmarks before you set the range.
Example 3: Marketing Coordinator, design studio
Creative candidates read the benefits section harder than anyone else.
What you get
- £34,000 to £40,000
- 25 days holiday, plus the studio closes between Christmas and New Year
- Adobe Creative Cloud licence and a £750 annual training budget
- One conference a year of your choosing, we pay for the ticket and the travel
Weak lines and strong lines
| Weak | Strong | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive salary | £38,000 to £45,000 | Adverts without pay get fewer and worse quality applications, and pay is likely to become a legal requirement |
| Fast paced environment | Three to five live submissions at any time | Specific, and self selects for people who like that |
| Must be a team player | You will work directly with two project architects and our graphic designer | Describes reality instead of a personality trait |
| Excellent communication skills | Comfortable chasing technical content from senior staff under deadline | Tests the actual skill |
| Hybrid working available | Three days in the studio, two from home | Removes the biggest cause of late stage drop out |
| Immediate start | First interviews within ten days, decision by 20 October | Gives a candidate something to plan around |
Do job adverts have to show salary in the UK?
Not yet, but that is changing. As of September 2026 there is no legal requirement to publish salary in a UK job advert.
However, the government’s equal pay and pay discrimination consultation, published on 14 July 2026 by the Office for Equality and Opportunity, proposes a statutory requirement for employers in England, Scotland and Wales to publish pay information in job adverts. Where no advert is used, the employer would have to give the candidate that information in writing before the interview. Ministers are still consulting on whether that means an exact salary, a pay range, or a benchmark rate. The consultation closes at 5pm on 27 October 2026.
The direction of travel is clear, and the EU has already gone further. Under the EU Pay Transparency Directive, all employers must tell candidates the starting salary or pay range in the vacancy notice or before interview, and are barred from asking about pay history. Separately, EU employers with at least 100 staff must publish their gender pay gap. The current UK proposal does not include a pay history ban.
Our advice to clients is simple. Put the range in now. You will get fewer applications and better ones, you will waste less time on candidates whose expectations were never going to align, and you will not have to rewrite your entire advert library in twelve months.
What you cannot put in a job advert
Job adverts are covered by the Equality Act 2010, so you cannot advertise in a way that discriminates against a protected characteristic. In practice that rules out:
- Age. No “young and dynamic”, no “recent graduate” where a graduate is not genuinely required, no maximum years of experience.
- Gender. No “salesman”, no “we are looking for a girl for the front desk”. Use gender neutral titles.
- Requirements that exclude disabled candidates without being genuinely essential. GOV.UK’s guidance on recruitment and disabled people gives the standard example: if the occasional travel could be done by train, do not say the person needs a driving licence. Its wider guidance on discrimination in recruitment is worth reading alongside it.
- Language that indirectly screens people out, such as demanding a specific university, or “native English speaker” where fluency is what you actually need.
There are narrow exceptions, called occupational requirements, but they are genuinely narrow. If you think one applies, take advice first. Acas is a good free starting point.
Your advert is good and you still are not getting the right people. Now what?
This is the honest bit. In the built environment support market, the best bid coordinators, document controllers and practice managers are not on job boards. They are in post, doing well, and not looking. A brilliant advert reaches the people who are actively searching, which in a talent short market is a minority of the available talent.
That is the gap a specialist agency fills. We are not reading applications, we are having conversations with people who were not planning to move until the right thing appeared. It is also why the hiring model matters as much as the advert. If the role is genuinely urgent, a contract or freelance hire can cover the gap while you run a proper permanent search rather than settling for whoever applied.
Hiring for a bids, marketing, design or studio support role? We fill these roles across the UK built environment and design sectors, permanent, contract and freelance. Have a look at how we work with employers, or just get in touch and tell us what you are struggling to fill. If you would rather see the market first, our current positions page shows what is live right now.
Frequently asked questions
What is a job advert?
A job advert is a short, public summary of a vacancy written to attract candidates. It typically includes the job title, location, working pattern, salary, an overview of the role, the essential skills, the benefits and how to apply. It is shorter and more persuasive than a job description.
What is the difference between a job advert and a job description?
A job advert is external, written for candidates, and usually 300 to 500 words. A job description is internal, written for HR and the hiring manager, and usually 800 to 1,500 words. The advert sells the role. The job description defines it.
Do job adverts have to show salary in the UK?
Not currently. There is no legal requirement as of September 2026. The government is consulting on making it mandatory, with the consultation closing at 5pm on 27 October 2026, and most specialists recommend including a range now.
How long should a job advert be?
Around 300 to 500 words for most support roles. Long enough to cover the nine essentials, short enough that a candidate can read it on a phone in under two minutes.
Can a job advert specify an age?
No. Specifying an age, or using coded language such as “young”, “energetic graduate” or “no more than five years experience”, risks breaching the Equality Act 2010.
How long do job adverts stay online?
Most job boards sell adverts in 7, 14 or 28 day slots, with 28 days the common default. Practically, if an advert has not produced a viable shortlist in two weeks, the problem is the advert, the salary or the market, and refreshing it unchanged for another fortnight rarely helps.
What does “circa” mean on a job advert?
Circa means approximately. “Circa £40,000” signals that the employer has a target figure with some flexibility either side, usually around five to ten per cent.
Should I write the job advert or the job description first?
Write the job description first. It forces you to agree the scope internally. The advert is then a matter of pulling out the most attractive and most distinguishing parts.
