Style guide
Update history
2025-08-18 16:49
A to Z – Added entries for ‘public limited company (plc)’ and ‘junk and spam emails’. Updated the ‘email’ entry to discourage using ‘email’ to refer to an email address, and updated the ‘Telephone numbers’ entry to discourage using ‘mobile’ to mean ‘mobile phone’.
2025-08-18 12:36
A to Z – Updated the ‘minister’ section to make it clearer that ‘Minister’ should not be used as an honorific.
2025-07-18 11:17
A to Z – Added an entry for ‘pay by bank’.
2025-02-07 11:19
A to Z – Added an entry for ‘Names and personal titles’.
2025-01-21 15:43
A to Z – Updated the guidance on millions and billions – to clarify that if it’s part of a sequence that has amounts above £1 million (or billion), you can use ‘£0.xx million’ (or billion).
2025-01-03 14:24
A to Z – Updated to reflect that ‘devolved government’ is now the preferred term and not ‘devolved administration’.
2025-01-02 12:01
A to Z – Updated the ‘ethnic minorities’ section to capitalise all the names of ethnic groups.
2024-11-21 12:18
A to Z – Added guidance about when to use ‘page’ and when to use ‘screen’.
2024-11-19 10:35
A to Z – A to Z – Added guidance to ‘Numbers’ section on how to write zero degrees.
2024-10-25 11:31
A to Z – Added guidance to ‘Times’ section to specify if it’s “UK time” for users outside the UK.
2024-06-28 18:24
A to Z – Added new term for Business Identifier Code (BIC) as agreed in style council
2024-06-05 17:05
A to Z – Updated the N/A entry for accessibility.
2024-04-04 16:47
A to Z – Updated guidance about suggesting a change or addition to the GOV.UK style guide.
2024-02-05 17:30
A to Z – Updated the ‘bold’ entry to clarify when and how bold should be used.
2024-02-05 16:02
A to Z – Added style guide entries for GOV.UK and WhatsApp.
2023-11-28 15:36
A to Z – Added and updated style guide entries for Jobseeker’s Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance.
2023-11-03 17:28
Technical content A to Z – We’ve added a technical content style guide which covers the style, structure and terms you should use when writing content for technical users on GOV.UK.
2023-10-19 12:31
A to Z – Added guidance on alphanumeric entries to ‘Lists’.
2023-10-06 10:04
A to Z – Added ###USA Upper case. Not ‘US’.
2023-09-06 09:44
A to Z – Added guidance about how to use the GOV.UK One Login name and more information about using sign in or log in.
2023-06-05 10:35
A to Z – Updated ‘coronavirus (COVID-19)’ entry to ‘COVID-19’.
2023-02-21 10:52
A to Z – Updated the ‘Bank details’ entry to clarify that bullet points should be used.
2022-07-26 11:01
A to Z – Added new entry ‘Addresses in the UKAmended the entry for ‘Gender’, formally ‘Gender-neutral text’
2022-07-07 10:10
A to Z – Added new entries for coronavirus (COVID-19) and critical worker. These have been moved from the coronavirus (COVID-19) style guide which has now been retired.
2022-05-18 09:19
A to Z – Added a new entry ‘ethnic minorities’.
2022-02-23 15:38
A to Z – Amended the ‘Addressing the user’ entry and added a new entry ‘Gender-neutral text’.