Resources
Recruitment insights
Hiring cost, process and benchmark guides for UK and Ireland employers — including first-party data from the roles we have actually filled.
Comparison
What flat-fee recruitment actually costs in the UK
Most flat-fee providers do not publish a price, and the biggest comparison page lists eight of them without quoting a single figure. Here is what the ones who do publish actually charge, checked on their own pages, and how to work out which route is cheapest for your role.
· 5 min read
Comparison
Recruitment agency alternatives for UK employers
Every realistic way to fill a role without paying 15–25% of salary — in-house, job boards, flat fee, referrals, RPO and interim — with what each actually costs, what it takes from you, and when each one is the wrong answer.
· 4 min read
Troubleshooting
Why am I getting no applications? Nine causes and how to fix each one
Most roles that attract nothing are not badly advertised, they are badly defined. The nine causes we see most often, how to tell which one you have, and what to change first.
· 4 min read
Benchmarks
How long does it take to fill a role in the UK? Our data from 46 filled vacancies
The median role we filled took 42 days from brief to close, but the spread runs from 14 to 169 days. The per-sector breakdown, what actually drives the difference, and how to read a time-to-fill promise.
· 4 min read
Comparison
Contingency, retained, flat fee or subscription — which recruitment model fits your hiring
A plain comparison of the five ways UK employers buy recruitment, what each one actually costs on a £40,000 hire, where each breaks down, and how to pick without paying for capacity you will not use.
· 4 min read
How-to
How to write a job advert that gets applications
A job advert is not a job description. The structure that works, what to put in the first three lines, how to handle salary and requirements, and the phrases to delete.
· 3 min read
Sector guide
How to hire care staff and registered managers in the UK
Care is one of the slowest sectors to fill — a 64-day median in our own data. What drives the delay, why compliance roles behave differently from care workers, and what actually shortens the timeline.
· 4 min read
Sector guide
How to hire a management accountant in the UK
What the role actually needs, how long it takes, what the pipeline looks like, and the screening questions that separate a management accountant from a bookkeeper with a title.
· 5 min read
Sector guide
How to hire a construction estimator
Estimators are a small, employed and rarely-looking market. What that means for the timeline, what our own estimator search actually took, and how to screen for the judgement rather than the software.
· 4 min read
Cost
How much do recruitment agencies charge in the UK?
Contingency agencies typically charge 15–25% of first-year salary, which is £6,000–£10,000 on a £40,000 role. Here is what each pricing model actually costs, what CIPD's own cost-per-hire data says, and how flat fees compare.
· 3 min read
Benchmarks
How many candidates does it take to make one hire? Real pipeline data
Across 46 filled roles we sourced and screened 1,542 people to make 51 hires — a median of 26 candidates worked per hire, 4.5 presented and 3 client interviews. The full funnel and what each drop-off means.
· 4 min read
Ireland
Hiring in Ireland from the UK — what actually changes
A UK employer's guide to recruiting in Ireland: which job boards matter, what the pay and VAT differences mean, and which parts of a UK hiring process transfer unchanged.
· 4 min read
Decision guide
Should you advertise the role yourself or use a recruiter?
A decision guide based on our own pipeline data — how much screening a role actually takes, which roles fill themselves from an advert, and which never will.
· 4 min read