Contact us | National Careers Service

Interview advice | National Careers Service

Webchat | Contact us | National Careers Service

Careers advice - job profiles, information and resources | National Careers Service

404 | National Careers Service

Privacy and cookies | National Careers Service

Accessibility | National Careers Service

Help | National Careers Service

Skills assessment | National Careers Service

Cover letters | National Careers Service

Links must be defined in a specific way to be accessed by screen readers, which are used by 
blind and the partially-sighted.

To work with accessibility technologies, links must contain both machine-readable text, and 
a `href` attribute. If a link is not actually
pointing to a page or part of a page, it should be replaced with another semantic element, such
as a `button`, or the `<a>` tag should have a role of `button`. 

For example:

```html
<a href="/about">About us</a>
```

If the link contains _nothing but an image_, that image should specify alternative text, e.g.

```html
<a href="/apple">
    <img src="apple.png" alt="Apple">
</a>
```

Before HTML5, an anchor was often used to create a target to link to, e.g.

```html
<a name="example"></a>
```

This is not supported in HTML5, and the use of anchors for targets is discouraged. Use an `id`
attribute on a non-anchor tag instead, e.g.

```html
<div id="example"> ... </div>
```

Empty links (e.g. `<a></a>`) are often incorrectly used for buttons or controls in a
JavaScript application. In these cases, you should usually define the link as having a more appropriate
role, e.g. as a button. To do this, use the `role` attribute (e.g `<a role="button">`), or replace 
the `<a>` tag with a more appropriate tag, such as `<button>`.

For more details, see [Technique H91](https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20161007/H91)
and learn about [ARIA roles](https://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-use-aria-effectively-with-html5/).

bad-anchor

June 2025

May 2025

National Careers Service

Title / URL	Issues
Contact us \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/contact-us	7
Interview advice \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/interview-advice	7
Webchat \| Contact us \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/webchat/chat	6
Careers advice - job profiles, information and resources \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/	6
404 \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/invented-url-for-404-page	6
Privacy and cookies \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/help/privacy-and-cookies	6
Accessibility \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/help/accessibility	6
Help \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/help	6
Skills assessment \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/skills-assessment	6
Cover letters \| National Careers Servicenationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/covering-letter	6

Ensure links can be used by screen readers

National Careers Service

Where this issue has occurred