Style and writing guide
Numbers
How to write numbers in different contexts, including money, dates, times, and phone numbers.
Ages
When referring to a person’s age, always use numerals.
When referring to the age of a thing, use numerals up to the hundreds of thousands. After that, use a numeral followed by a word.
Do not use hyphens unless to avoid confusion, although it’s always best to write in a way that avoids ambiguity. Do not use hyphens for age ranges, use ‘to’ instead.
Be specific who’s included when you refer to age.
Example
Use:
- Jenny is 7 years old
- 15 students aged 16 took the A level course
- aged 4 to 16 years
- people aged 50 and over
- people aged 17 and under
Avoid:
- Jenny is seven years old
- 15 16-year-old students took the A level course
- aged 4-16 years
- the over 50s
- the under-18s
Dates
Use upper case for months: January, February.
When space is an issue, such as in a table of dates, you can use truncated months: Jan, Feb.
Do not use a comma between the month and year.
We use ‘to’ in date ranges. We do not use hyphens, en rules or em dashes.
Do not use quarters for dates, use the month instead.
When referring to today (as in a news article) include the date in brackets.
For audio content including Interactive Voice Response (IVR), use ordinal numbers in dates because that is how you would say it.
Examples
- 4 June 2017
- Tax year 2011 to 2012
- Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (put different days on a new line, do not separate with a comma)
- 10 November to 21 December
- Jan to Mar 2013, not quarter one
- ‘The minister announced today (14 June 2012) that…’
- audio content only: 4th of June 2017
Maths content
Telephone numbers
Follow the GOV.UK style guide entry for ‘Telephone numbers’.
Times
Use ‘to’ in time ranges, not hyphens, en rules or em dashes.
Show time using a 12-hour clock.
Write timescales in hours and minutes, not as a fraction.
Examples
- 10am to 11am, not 10-11am
- 5:30pm, not 1730hrs
- Midnight, not 00:00
- Midday, not 12 noon, noon or 12pm
- 6 hours 30 minutes, not 6.5 hours