Hard & Soft Enquiries

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"Soft" searches are typically marked as ID, quotation or personal searches, whilst "hard" searches are typically marked as credit search/credit application and the like. On your actual reports some CRAs will separate the searches into hard and soft, while others do not. Not every lender will use all three CRAs to perform their searches or reports, which is why it is important to look at your reports from all three CRAs. You can access your reports for free through MSE Credit club (Experian), Noddle (TransUnion) and Clearscore (Equifax). Most lenders will submit updates to credit reports once per month or so, so sometimes (but not always) it can take a while for changes to filter through and be visible.

Also, ignore the score that each CRA provides you with - it is basically meaningless as no-one else but you can see it. Lenders instead generate their own score based on the contents of your credit file, alongside any other information provided during your application.