PHP on your resume: give it a framework and a result

The direct answer

Yes, keep PHP on your resume if you have built or maintained something people used. PHP appears on 3.65% of the 72,068 resumes RezScore analyzed from November 15, 2025 through July 15, 2026, ranking #33 among 89 reviewed technology skills. That figure describes how often the word turns up in this sample. It says nothing about the quality of your work or the value of the language.

PHP without context is the problem, not PHP. The word covers everything from a customized theme to a maintained payment flow. Name the framework or CMS, the thing you shipped or modernized, and the claim gets specific enough to be worth reading.

How to present PHP on your resume

Give the skills section context

Put PHP in your skills section with its framework or platform. PHP (Laravel, Composer) and PHP (WordPress, custom plugins) describe different work, so choose the context that is true for you. Add a version only when it clarifies current work you can discuss.

Prove it in your experience

Then give PHP one experience bullet where a real system carries it. Fill in this pattern with your own work:

Built [feature or module] in PHP with [framework or CMS], [delivery, performance, or maintenance result].

That shape names the context and the payoff, which is what separates an engineer from someone who edited a file once. If you have no measurable outcome, describe what changed for users or the team, such as replacing a manual export with a scheduled job. Do not invent a load-time improvement.

Use verbs that show the work

Built, modernized, refactored, migrated, and hardened describe ownership. Worked with PHP describes proximity. Migrated a legacy PHP application to a maintained framework names both the system and the responsibility.

Be honest about thin experience

If your PHP work was tweaking a WordPress theme or following a course project, label it accurately. Theme customization is honest work, but it is not the same claim as application development. Blurring the two sets an expectation your evidence cannot support.

Leave PHP off if you have only installed plugins or clicked through an admin panel. Listing a language you have not written invites questions about the code you did not write. If your real skill is running a CMS, claim that instead and claim it confidently.

Skills that appear with PHP

PHP rarely appears alone. In this sample, the skills most often found on the same resumes were:

• HTML appears on 75.7% of the resumes in this sample that mention PHP (1991 resumes).
• CSS appears on 71.0% of the resumes in this sample that mention PHP (1866 resumes).
• JavaScript appears on 70.4% of the resumes in this sample that mention PHP (1852 resumes).

If these are part of your real work, group them near PHP so the stack reads as one practice. PHP alongside the front-end and database work it connected to shows a full-stack story. PHP dropped into an alphabetical keyword list shows nothing.

Questions people ask about PHP on a resume

Is PHP still worth listing on a resume?

Yes, if you have real PHP experience to describe. Name the framework or CMS, the system you worked on, and whether you built, maintained, or modernized it. That context turns PHP from a leftover keyword into a specific claim.

How many resumes list PHP?

PHP appears on 3.65% of the 72,068 resumes RezScore analyzed from November 15, 2025 through July 15, 2026. That is 2,630 resumes and a #33 rank among the 89 reviewed technology skills in this analysis. The figure counts mentions, not proficiency.

Should I list a PHP framework instead of PHP?

List both when both are true. PHP names the language, while a framework such as Laravel or Symfony shows the environment where you used it. The experience bullet should then prove what you built or maintained with that combination.

Where should PHP go on my resume?

Use two places. Your skills section gets PHP with context, such as PHP (Laravel, Composer), for scanners and keyword filters. One experience bullet gets the proof: the feature or migration you owned and what it changed.