What are average recruitment agency fees in the UK?
If you’re in the process of hiring new employees, you’ll likely be thinking you need to use a recruitment agency, although there is now more ways than ever before to recruit staff. Yes recruitment agencies can be a great resource when it comes to finding the perfect employee for your business, however they can be very expensive.
In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the average recruitment agency fees in the UK and discuss some tips on how to save money while recruiting your next member of staff.
Recruitment agency fees can vary depending on the type of recruitment agency you use as well as the industry/sector you’re recruiting for…
For example, a “high street” agency could charge you anything from 10% whereas a specialist “Exec Search” firm is likely to be closer to 30% and sometimes even higher!
Then say if you were recruiting in the finance sector, if you’re looking to hire a qualified Accountant, you can expect to pay a lot more in recruitment fees than if you were hiring for an entry-level Trainee Accounts Assistant position.
So how do recruitment agencies calculate their fees?
Generally, the average recruitment agency will charge you a percentage of the candidates first years basic salary, this can range from anything between 10-30%. So if you’re looking to hire a candidate with the UK’s average annual salary of just over £38,000 per year, you could be paying recruitment fees of up to £11,400! This can quickly and easily add up to be a huge cost if you’re a growing business.
Of course, it also depends on the type of recruitment you’re looking to do – temporary, contingency, temp to perm etc. and this is likely to be down to the role you’re looking to fill. Agency Central have also put together an article that explains recruitment fees and the different types that you might come across. Check it out here.
Here are some examples of what agency fees would look like at different salaries and percentage levels...
Top paying industries in the UK
If you are looking to recruit in one of the UK’s top paying industries, based on the average annual earnings you can expect to pay somewhere around the fees below…
Financial and insurance activities: Up to £13,146 (average salary £43,821)
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply: Up to £12,735 (average salary £42,450)
Mining and quarrying: Up to £12,716 (average salary £42,389)
Information and communication: Up to £12,680 (average salary £42,267)
Professional, scientific and technical activities: Up to £11,245 (average salary £37,484)
How to recruit in the UK without incurring the average recruitment agency fees?
As we mentioned earlier on in this blog there are now more and more ways to recruit your next member of staff that don’t have the hefty agency price tag that comes with it.
The quickest and easiest way to reduce your recruitment spend is doing more of your recruitment directly – via referral schemes, job advertising and social media just to name a few.
We have put a blog together specifically about all of these things that you can read here;
So if you’re looking to recruit now, or in the next few months, get in touch and we can run through ways to keep your recruitment costs down, but the quality of your hire higher than ever!
Here at Get Staffed, we helped thousands of growing businesses recruit for just £299, and no, that isn’t a typo! Check out our job advertising package or click below to get started…