UK recruitment agency benchmarks 2026: Fees, Billings and Admin Time

Published UK benchmarks agree on fee bands and on how heavy admin is, but none was built for a 3-to-10 seat agency. Treat them as outer markers, then benchmark your own desk on three numbers, namely your average fee, your placements per fee earner and your admin hours per vacancy.

Key takeaways

• UK agency fee guides most often quote contingency permanent fees of 15% to 25% of first-year salary, with 15% to 20% the usual band for mainstream roles. (Sources: Matrix Personnel, CMD Recruitment and JR Recruitment, checked 28 October 2026.)

• Hays reported net fees of about $1,213m for the year to 30 June 2026 and 5,194 fee earners at year end, about $233,600 each by our arithmetic, and that figure mixes temporary and permanent work.

• The REC found that 79.5% of UK recruitment enterprises had fewer than 10 employees, but that split dates from 2021 data, and no public benchmark covers 3-to-10 seat desks specifically.

• A Totaljobs survey reported 17.7 hours of manual admin per vacancy, which is nearly 850 hours a year at four vacancies a month.

• If you are tied into a CRM contract, Shortlists costs $51 per user a month until that term ends.

Where published UK benchmark data comes from, and why none of it is built for a 3-to-10 seat agency

Four kinds of source cover the UK market, and each answers a different question. None reports fees, billings and admin time together, and none splits its results by team size. That is the gap a small agency has to fill with its own numbers, which is also how a small desk can compete with larger firms, as we explain in our guide to how small UK agencies compete with larger firms.

The benchmark data comes from the sources listed above, all checked on 28 October 2026. Figures originally reported in pounds sterling have been converted to US dollars at £1 = $1.34 and rounded, based on the GBP/USD exchange rate recorded by Currency News UK on 23 October 2026.

The REC size split deserves one more caution. An enterprise with fewer than 10 employees counts back-office staff as well as fee earners, so a 3-to-10 seat agency overlaps with that group without being identical to it. It also means the typical UK agency is small, which makes it all the more surprising that so little published data is cut by size.

Permanent fees: UK agency fee guides put contingency fees at 15% to 25% of first-year salary

No audited UK average exists, but published fee guides are consistent. Matrix Personnel describes permanent fees as commonly 15% to 25% of first-year salary, rising for harder-to-fill roles. CMD Recruitment gives the same 15% to 25% range and notes that fees are normally quoted before VAT. JR Recruitment puts the usual band at 15% to 20%, rising to 20% to 30% for specialist, technical or senior roles.

The table turns those percentages into fees, so you can see what a mix of salaries and fee levels does to a placement. These are our arithmetic, not survey results.

Salary multiplied by fee percentage, with the salaries converted from 35,000, 45,000 and 55,000 pounds at 1.34 and fees rounded to the nearest $100, before VAT. Illustrative.

On the market side, Hays said its average permanent fee rose 2% in the year to June 2026 as it targeted higher-value roles, even while its permanent net fees fell 12% on lower volumes. That pattern matters to a small desk, because volume, not fee level, is where the pressure showed.

Billings per fee earner: Hays gives a large-group ceiling, not a target for a small permanent desk

The only audited billing figures come from listed groups. Hays reported net fees of about $1,303m for the year to June 2025 and about $1,213m for the year to June 2026, and its year-end fee earner headcount fell from 6,070 to 5,194. Dividing one by the other gives the figures below, which are our arithmetic using year-end headcount rather than Hays' own productivity measure.

Two cautions apply. Hays' net fees include temporary and contracting work, which made up 64% of the group, so the figure is not a permanent-desk benchmark. It also reflects a large group's mix of sectors and countries. As an illustration of what the number implies, matching about $233,600 on permanent fees alone would take roughly 29 placements at $8,000, 19 at $12,100 or 15 at $16,100. Use that as a stretch marker, not a target.

The 2026 market: Permanent placements have fallen for more than three years in the KPMG and REC survey

The KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs said at the end of 2025 that the downturn in permanent staff appointments had extended to 39 months. In May 2026 it recorded the quickest fall in permanent recruitment for ten months, which it linked to uncertainty about the outlook.

The REC's industry status report adds two numbers that matter to cash flow. Real industry GVA fell 5.3% in 2025, with growth of 4.4% forecast for 2026, and 35% of member firms had experienced bad debt in the past year. A small desk feels both, because one late or unpaid fee is a larger share of its income. Our guide to growing a small UK recruitment agency covers how desks keep revenue steady in a slow market.

Admin time: Totaljobs found 17.7 hours of manual admin per vacancy, and the breakdown shows where it goes

Totaljobs research, reported by Staffing Industry Analysts, found UK recruiters spend an average of 17.7 hours per vacancy on manual admin. Across four vacancies a month, that is nearly 850 hours a year per recruiter, which matches the arithmetic (17.7 hours times four vacancies times twelve months is 849.6).

Totaljobs, via Staffing Industry Analysts. The last row is our subtraction.

The research drew on a survey of HR leaders, as People Management reported in August 2025, so it reflects employer-side hiring and an agency desk will differ. It is still a useful prompt, because two of the three named tasks, notes and scheduling, are the ones a notetaker and a pipeline remove. See how an AI interview notetaker works for recruiters.

How to benchmark your own 3-to-10 seat desk on five numbers

Because no public data fits your size, your own records are the benchmark. Five numbers do most of the work, and each can be pulled from a CRM that records placements and activity.

Once you have the five numbers, compare them in a fixed order. Start with fee as a share of salary, because it shows whether you are pricing in line with the published 15% to 25% band. Then look at placements per fee earner, which shows whether volume is the constraint, and admin hours per vacancy, which shows how much of that constraint is time rather than demand. Repeat the exercise each quarter so a trend is visible, since a single snapshot says little in a market that has moved this much.

The Revenue Dashboard is built to show what your desk is worth, and our piece on how much time BD takes a recruiter shows how to measure the last row. A routine that keeps BD steady is in building a consistent BD system for a boutique agency.

Track placement revenue and business development activity with Shortlists

Shortlists does not publish industry benchmarks. It gives a 3-to-10 seat desk its own numbers, in one tool, so the comparison above becomes a habit rather than a project. BD Radar scans for hiring signals so you can get to the hiring manager before the job is posted, and the notetaker and pipeline take out admin.

The plan is $99 per user a month, or annual billing with a 15% saving, and includes BD Radar, the notetaker, a client portal and 100 credits per seat a month. There is no annual contract required, and the full list is on the Shortlists pricing page. We respect the craft, so the software takes the admin and your recruiters keep the judgement that wins placements.

Frequently asked questions

Start with your own five numbers, then compare them with the published ones

Pull a year of placements, fees and admin hours, compare them with the markers above, and see where your desk differs. Shortlists is built for 3-to-10 seat UK agencies and used by 55+ of them.

• Start your 7-day free trial and see how your records sit in it before you commit to anything.

• Book a demo and we will map the migration around your existing term.