June 2012.pdf - RCSA

international comment
My dad is bigger than your dad!
They say size doesn’t
matter, however, it
seems to me that
in the world of
recruitment a lot of
emphasis is focused
on just who is the
biggest.
David Head, publisher of
Recruitment International
magazine
Some 15 years ago Recruitment International
published the first of what has now become
an annual industry research document; it
was called the Top 100 Report. In the publication
we decided to try and make a list of all the
recruitment companies that had a turnover
in the UK in excess of £10 million per annum
(AU$15,934,794). In the end we came up with
99 companies; so with true journalistic integrity
we made up a bogus entry to get to the magical
“100” number!
The publication was an amazing success.
Those companies that hadn’t necessarily
volunteered their numbers, but were included
after some research at Companies House, ensured
they filed accurate up-to-date figures in Volume 2.
Such was the growth of the industry at this stage,
that by having figures that were technically a year
behind the competition, a company that could
have been in the Top 20 were actually listed at
number 35. The fascination with who was the
biggest flourished and some egos were certainly
bruised!
The popularity of the publication continued to
grow and, as it was also unique at the time, it was
soon being posted overseas, in particular to the
US, where the Americans were actually using the
Report more or less as a shopping list for their UK
acquisition targets.
The Report has continued to evolve and work
is now under way to update and record who has
achieved what turnover for inclusion in our 15th
issue covering the fiscal year 2011. One aspect of
the research has definitely grown and that is in
the number of recruitment companies that have
made it over the £10 million entry criteria. From its
original one hundred companies, the publication
is now called the Top 250 Report although it
actually contains more than 270 companies.
The research has also expanded by breaking
down turnover into disciplines, number of offices,
employees and contractor numbers. One of the
most fascinating aspects of the Report is ownership,
which shows that of the largest one hundred
recruiters, just over one in five is owned by a
company from outside the UK! In fact, there are
78 companies that are actually owned in the UK.
There are 12 companies with US parents, with
three each from Ireland and France. Then Italy,
the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan each of
which have one representative. (The largest
recruiter I could place from Australia was
Ambition which ranked at number 210).
The Top 10 UK recruitment companies ranked
by UK turnover are:
1 Adecco Swiss
2 Hays UK
3 Impellam UK
4 Reed UK
5 Randstad Dutch
6 ManpowerGroup US
7 Elan IT US
8 Morson Group UK
9 Cordant UK
10 Pertemps UK
This got me into thinking that the same must
be true for other countries and would the same
logic apply to Australia Who are the biggest
recruiters in your country I thought I would try
to find out, which is not that easy at thousands of
miles away. However, with the help of the internet
I have given it a go. Here’s my Top 10, I would
dearly love to think that my research is 100%
correct but I await your feedback as to who I’ve
left out!
Skilled Group
Adecco
ManpowerGroup
Talent2/Allegis
Rubicor
Randstad
Robert Walters
Hays
Michael Page
Peoplebank
Australian
Swiss
US
Aus/US
Australian
Dutch
UK
UK
UK
Australia
Happy for you all to fill in the ranking order
– email me at david@recruitment-international.co.uk.
Oh, and my dad is 5 feet 8 inches (172.7 cm) tall.
JUNE 2012 19