Case studies · Building services & trades
Building services roles, filled
Four trades and building services searches, from a 20-day plumber to a 94-day gas engineer. 86 candidates worked, 21 presented, five hired.
Plumber
A growing property maintenance contractor working for high-profile property managers across residential and commercial buildings · Property maintenance & plumbing
- Time to fill
- 20 days
- Package
- £40,000 – £46,800 basic DOE, plus overtime opportunities
- Location
- London — full-time, mobile
New contract wins across London created the vacancy. The client needed a plumber who could cover reactive maintenance, planned works, fault finding, installations, leak investigations, HIU work and cylinder repairs, across both domestic properties and communal systems. Five years of experience and strong fault-finding were the fixed requirements, alongside a full UK licence.
Thirty-nine candidates were sourced and screened, nineteen went to internal interview and eight were presented. The client interviewed every one of the eight and hired one. Twenty days from brief to hire, the fastest search in this sector, on a shortlist the client did not have to filter itself.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 39
- Internal interview 19
- Presented to client 8
- Client interview 8
- Hired 1
39 candidates worked, eight presented, and all eight interviewed. Filled in 20 days.
Every candidate we presented was interviewed. Eight for eight, and the role was filled in 20 days.
20 days from brief to filled.
Fire Door Engineer
A leading door installation and maintenance provider working across local authorities, hospitals, nursing homes, schools and hotels · Fire safety & door installation
- Time to fill
- 23 days
- Package
- £18 – £22 per hour DOE
- Location
- The North East of England and North Yorkshire — full-time, permanent
Fire door work is compliance work. The client needed an engineer who could install and maintain fire doors and frames, identify certification labels, inspect against fire regulations, and mentor two existing engineers without taking on formal line management. Hands-on competence plus the confidence to lead quietly is a narrow specification.
Thirteen candidates were sourced and screened. One was strong enough to take through internal interview and present. The client interviewed that candidate and hired them. A shortlist of one is only defensible when the screening behind it is thorough; here it closed the role in 23 days without wasting the client's interview time.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 13
- Internal interview 1
- Presented to client 1
- Client interview 1
- Hired 1
13 candidates worked. One presented, one hired. Filled in 23 days.
One candidate presented, one hired. A shortlist of one is a decision, not a shortcut.
23 days from brief to filled.
Electrician
A well-established electrical, fire and security contractor serving domestic and commercial customers across Essex and North London · Electrical contracting
- Time to fill
- 47 days
- Package
- £40,000–£45,000 basic salary, OTE £60,000–£70,000 including overtime and call-out
- Location
- South East England — mobile, covering Essex, London, Kent and Hertfordshire
A one-engineer-per-van role asks for independence as much as skill. The client wanted reactive maintenance and fault finding, alterations and installations, consumer unit replacements, full and partial rewires, EV charger installation and EICR testing, with accurate certification behind all of it. Candidates also had to accept daily travel across four counties.
Fourteen candidates were sourced and screened, seven went to internal interview and four were presented. Two reached client interview and one was hired, 47 days from brief. The worked field was small because the qualification was strict from the first conversation rather than at shortlist stage.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 14
- Internal interview 7
- Presented to client 4
- Client interview 2
- Hired 1
14 candidates worked to produce four presented. Filled in 47 days.
Fourteen candidates worked, four presented, one hired. Mobile roles are won on qualification, not volume.
47 days from brief to filled.
Gas Engineer
A Gas Safe registered plumbing, heating and gas business serving homes and businesses across the North East · Domestic gas & heating
- Time to fill
- 94 days
- Package
- £42,000 starting salary — up to £50,000
- Location
- The North East — within commuting distance of Newcastle
The qualifications were the easy part to check: CCN1, CENWAT, CKR1 and HTR1. Harder was the rest of the brief — five years of post-apprenticeship experience, strong general plumbing and fault-finding, and someone comfortable moving between several domestic jobs a day, with bathroom fits, new builds and plant room installations in the same role.
Twenty candidates were sourced and screened, fourteen were interviewed internally and eight were presented. Six of those eight were interviewed by the client and two were hired. The search took 94 days and produced two appointments rather than one, from a worked field of twenty.
Pipeline — candidates reaching each stage
- Sourced & screened 20
- Internal interview 14
- Presented to client 8
- Client interview 6
- Hired 2
20 candidates worked, eight presented, and two hired. Filled in 94 days.
Six of the eight candidates presented reached client interview, and two of them were hired.
94 days from brief to filled.
How the fee works
Every role on this page was delivered on the same basis: a fixed fee, agreed before we start, with no percentage of salary attached. The straightforward search and the difficult one cost the client the same.
That is the point of the model. A percentage fee charges you more for hiring a better-paid person and rewards us for the easy search. A fixed fee puts the risk of a long search where it belongs — with us. And if we do not fill the role, you get every penny of your fee back.
Every figure here comes from our own placement records. Clients and placed candidates are not named. Full detail on the model is on our Guaranteed Hire page.
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