The UK recruitment industry is a Goliath, and it is growing, and changing fast. If you are in any way involved, you have to understand this complex beast. It’s almost certainly not made up as you think.

I was in the UK recently to speak at my ‘Recruit. The Savage Way‘ book launch Masterclass tour. Nearly 1,000 UK recruiters signed up to join this fun event in Bristol, Birmingham, Belfast, Manchester, London and Glasgow.

And it all reinforced how vibrant and strong the UK market is overall.

I worked in London for two years as a recruiter back in the day, owned a recruitment business there for years, and now have many clients and friends in the industry in the UK. So, let’s take a moment to celebrate the UK recruitment industry. It’s a beauty, after all!

Here are the 10 startling facts… Fun reading!

1. The UK recruitment sector was worth £42.9 billion in 2021. That’s up 21.7% on 2020 and a massive contribution to the UK economy. (That is billion, not million. Just checking.)
2. The UK is the third biggest staffing market globally after the US and Japan.
3. Of that £42.9 billion generated in sales, £36.4 Billion was via temporary placements and £6.5 Billion via permanent placements.
4. Regarding permanent placements, UK recruitment agencies made 547,692 permanent ones in 2021 and chipped in a lazy 22.4 million temp/contract placements in addition. In a year. That’s 430,000 people placed in temp jobs by agencies every week. 86,000 a day.
5. There are 30,035 recruitment agencies in the UK (at the start of 2022).
6. There are 201,154 people working in UK recruitment agencies (you are not alone!)
7. This research was published at the end of 2022. The estimated forecast for the 2022 year is a 7.4% growth in the fees generated in 2021 and a 14.3% growth in the volume of recruitment agency clients in 2022 compared to 2021.
8. 79.5% of UK recruitment businesses are micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
9. 82% of recruitment businesses in the UK have a turnover of less than £ 1 million pa.
10. There are 470 recruitment enterprises in the UK with 250+ employees.

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The Recruitment & Employment Confederation produced this fascinating and outstanding data, which can be found in the UK Recruitment Industry Status Report 2021/22. The REC is organising my masterclass tour. Thank you!