Going Back to Work After a Career Break or Maternity Leave: Your Supporting Statement

Whether you’ve been at home with children, caring for a relative, or taking time out for your health, a gap on your application can feel like a weakness. It doesn’t need to be. Here’s how to explain it briefly, and how to use what you’ve done as evidence.

Explain the gap briefly, and don’t apologise

Employers see career breaks all the time. One or two plain sentences in your employment history, or at the start of your statement, is enough:

“From 2021 to 2025 I took a career break to raise my two children. Now they are both at school, I’m looking forward to returning to an administrative role.”

Then move on. You don’t need to explain your childcare arrangements or share health details. Your statement should focus on what you can do for the employer.

Your break has given you real examples

The person specification asks for evidence of skills, not where you got them. Time out of paid work often builds exactly what employers want:

• Organisation: running a household, appointments, school runs and budgets
• Communication: dealing with schools, health professionals and services
• Calm under pressure: managing illness, difficult behaviour or emergencies
• Problem solving and negotiation: solving problems with limited time and money
• Caring and patience: especially useful for care, health, education and customer-facing roles

Use these carefully. A specific example is strong; a general claim such as “being a mum has made me organised” isn’t.

Volunteering, courses and side work count too

Think about everything you’ve done during your break: PTA or school fundraising, being a school governor, running a club or group, helping at church or a community centre, online courses, a qualification, or a few hours of freelance or casual work. All of these can provide examples, and show you’ve kept your skills fresh.

Example paragraph

Here is a STAR example for “Ability to organise events and work to deadlines”. It is an example only, so use your own experience.

“As a volunteer on my children’s school PTA, I led the organisation of the summer fair. With eight weeks to go, I created a shared spreadsheet of tasks and deadlines, recruited and briefed 15 volunteers, and contacted local businesses for raffle prizes. When two stallholders dropped out the week before, I rearranged the layout and found replacements. The fair raised £2,300 for new playground equipment, £600 more than the previous year.”

Show you’re ready to return

• Mention recent learning, such as an IT refresher, a short course or reading you’ve done about the sector.
• Say why now. One sentence on why this is the right time and the right job.
• Be confident about your earlier experience. Skills from before your break still count. Describe them as clearly as you would if you had left last month.

Help for people returning to work

• Returnships are paid placements for people coming back after a break, offered by some larger employers. Search “returnship” with your sector.
• Steps Ahead, from the CIPD, matches job seekers, including parent and carer returners, with volunteer HR mentors for free help with CVs, applications and interviews.
• Flexible working: in the UK you can ask for flexible working from your first day in a new job. You don’t have to raise it in your application.

New to supporting statements? Start with how to write a supporting statement.