Skip to main content
Reference

Interview questions and answers, UK

The UK evidence-based interview question library. Every question here exists because employers asked for it. We measure what UK job adverts and NHS person specifications require, then show you the number beside the question.

Anthony Clasper

338 interview questions, built from 758 distinct UK job adverts and 1,608 scored NHS person specification criteria.

Not AI guesses. 80 requirements measured, 11 of them also verified against an official published framework.

Most interview pages are a list somebody made up. This one is a measurement.

Where a requirement turns up often enough to matter, it becomes a question, and the question carries the number that put it there. For NHS roles that number comes from person specifications, which list what a panel actually scores against and mark each criterion essential or desirable.

Schools
67%experience working with children

Teaching Assistant interview questions

Measured on 358 distinct adverts, after 500 postings were collapsed and 18.9% of the text turned out to be recruitment agency boilerplate. Safeguarding is the number to read carefully: schools state their own commitment far more often than they ask the candidate for it, and the statutory duty applies either way.

123 questions·358 distinct UK teaching assistant adverts (2026)
Schools
59.6%covering the class

Higher Level Teaching Assistant interview questions

The higher level posts are a different job, and the corpus shows where the line falls. Three in five ask you to cover whole classes and deliver planned lessons, against one in five across teaching assistant posts as a whole. One to one support goes the other way.

123 questions·89 higher level teaching assistant adverts (2026)
Schools
72.2%supporting pupils with SEND

Learning Support Assistant interview questions

Learning support assistant is the SEND end of the same job. Seven in ten of these adverts name special educational needs, against fewer than six in ten across all teaching assistant posts, and almost none of them ask you to cover a class.

123 questions·115 learning support assistant adverts (2026)
Care
61.2%promoting independence

Care Worker interview questions

Care worker and support worker adverts are the same job under two titles, so they are measured together. The most-named requirement is not personal care. It is helping people do things for themselves.

123 questions·281 distinct UK care and support worker adverts (2026)
NHS
66.7%communication

NHS Band 5 Nurse interview questions

Measured on NHS Jobs person specifications, which list the criteria a panel scores against and mark each one essential or desirable. Band 5 asks for degree-level registration and prioritising far more than nursing as a whole, and for specialist post-registration courses far less.

92 questions·48 NHS Band 5 person specifications (2026)
NHS
52.1%working as part of a multidisciplinary team

Nurse interview questions

Measured on 1,608 criteria taken from NHS Jobs person specifications, each marked essential or desirable. Where the two numbers differ, the gap is the useful part: mentoring is essential in a third of posts and wanted in over half.

92 questions·119 UK nursing person specifications, 1,608 scored criteria (2026)

How we build this

  • We analyse thousands of real UK job adverts, and NHS person specifications where they exist.
  • We collapse reposts and strip recruiter boilerplate first. On the school corpus 18.9% of the text was the agency describing itself, and one advert had been posted 22 times.
  • We check them against official frameworks, and cite those only after reading the live source.
  • Every number on the page links back to what produced it.

Important. These are not leaked interview questions. They are built from real UK job adverts and official employer frameworks, to reflect the requirements employers consistently assess.

We do not claim these are the exact questions you will be asked. We measure what UK employers consistently ask for in their job adverts, check it against published assessment frameworks where one exists, and turn those requirements into realistic interview questions. Every question shows where it came from.