Our style guide

The purpose of a style guide is to enable effective communication by writing in a clear and consistent way.

This guide helps you to write and design for our website and channels. It includes information about our:

  • tone of voice
  • spelling and grammar for written content
  • brand identity
  • elements of our website design patterns

If there is a point of style that is not provided here, check Style guide – A to Z – Guidance – GOV.UK

How to use our style guide in 3 steps

1 Read and bookmark the guide

Everybody who writes for our internal or external audiences should use this style guide. We encourage you to familiarise yourself with each section to see where it may be different from how you would normally write. You can then bookmark the guide and return to it as often as you need to.

2 Apply the guidance to all content

Apply the style guide to all the content you write for our channels. This includes customer and colleague emails, customer and supplier documents, case studies, webpages, blogs or social media posts.

3 Check your work

Use our checklist to go through your work and make sure it follows the style guide before finalising.

Style guide

  • Words to watch

    We often use terms that have different meanings depending on the context. This can make it difficult to know when to use them.

    Read these words to watch out for.

     

  • Words not to use

    Many words in the English language have more than one meaning, which can make them difficult to understand for some users.

    Read these words not to use.

     

Design guide

  • Brand guidelines

    How we use our brand to consistently communicate with our customers visually and verbally. Includes tone of voice, brand colours and logo.

    Find out how to use our brand.

     

  • Designing for our webpages

    Learn about the design components we use on our website and how you can use them. Includes buttons and hero banner design.

    How to design pages for our website.

     

Resources and tools

  • Checklist

    When you have finished writing your piece of content, use our checklist to check you have followed the style guide and are ready to publish.

    Read our checklist.

  • Hemingway editor

    Hemingway editor is a great free tool to check your content. It includes features that let you know:

    • if your sentences are hard to read
    • where you’ve used passive voice or complex wording
    • how readable your overall text is (aim for grade 9 readability or less)

    Give Hemingway editor a try.

  • Plain English campaign

    The plain English campaign is an independent group that advocates for using plain language in all content. It has a range of free plain English tools that you can use to ensure your content is easy to read and understand.

    Visit the plain English campaign website.