Recruitment industry survey launched

Nick Elvin

The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) and business advisory firm Deloitte have launched a survey aimed at identifying challenges and opportunities within the recruitment sector.

The annual Recruitment Benchmarking Survey has been designed to help recruitment firms understand how their Key Performance Indicators compare with the overall market, therefore providing an indication of which strategic areas they should focus on to achieve success.

It is open to all recruitment firms which operate in the UK, and is part of an ongoing project to gather key operational and financial performance benchmarking metrics across the recruitment sector.

“Before we launched this index it was almost impossible to gain a real insight into the overall sector,” said Ann Swain, chief executive of APSCo. “Various small-scale surveys have attempted to extrapolate the kind of data required to generate meaningful benchmarking information, but to little effect.

“This is really valuable market information which helps recruitment firms to improve the understanding of their position in the market and address the key challenges they face.”

This year’s survey has been refined based on feedback from last year’s results and Deloitte’s experience of working with recruitment firms. The survey data is used to assess financial and operational performance as well as geographic footprint. Data is segmented by sector focus, firm size and recruitment method.

Katie Folwell-Davies, recruitment industry services partner at Deloitte, said: “The first two years of the APSCo Deloitte Recruitment Benchmarking Survey were hugely successful in identifying both challenges and opportunities for the recruitment sector and helping firms to better understand their position in the market.

“This year, the survey and analysis will be even more targeted, allowing us to provide high-quality and in-depth data to help firms facilitate their growth plans for 2015 and beyond.”

The survey is open until the end of April. To participate, contact Roger Tweedy (roger.tweedy@apsco.org) or Thushani Lawson (thlawson@deloitte.co.uk). All data will be treated in confidence and no firms will be identified in the report, and participants will receive a copy of the 2015 survey results publication when it is released in July.