Who is winning
Which competitors are winning UK public sector recruitment contracts
The seven suppliers winning the most UK public sector recruitment contracts from 2023 to 2025, ranked by award count, and who each one actually wins from.
Skim · Built on Skim's live UK procurement database7 October 20268 min read
Skim award records for UK buyers in CPV 79600000 (recruitment services) and 79620000 (supply of personnel, including temporary staff), awards dated 2023 to 2025 — three complete years. Snapshot 7 October 2026. Rankings count awards whose supplier carries a national company identifier, so every count is a floor. Where one company appears under more than one record, the records are merged and the merge is stated. Framework appointments are counted as wins, as the award data records them. Award counts only: no market or supplier value is quoted, because published values include framework ceilings shared across every supplier appointed to them.
The short answer
127 of 194
Skim award records, 2023 to 2025, snapshot 7 October 2026
To see which competitors are winning UK public sector contracts in your sector, count the awarded contracts in your sector's CPV codes by supplier, merge the records that belong to one company, and then check who each leader wins from. In recruitment from 2023 to 2025, the two largest records are Hays Specialist Recruitment with 194 awards and Reed Specialist Recruitment with 137, well clear of GatenbySanderson on 64, IRG Advisors on 62 and LA International on 59.
The buyer check changes what those numbers mean. 127 of Hays's awards and 103 of Reed's came from a single buyer, UK Shared Business Services, which publishes a separate award notice for each role it fills. Take that one buyer out and Reed's 137 becomes 34, while GatenbySanderson's 64 is spread across departments and regulators with no buyer above three in its visible record.
How to build this ranking yourself, free
Everything in this report can be rebuilt from public notices at no cost. For one sector it takes an afternoon; the buyer check in step four adds one export per supplier.
| Step | Where | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Search awarded notices | Contracts Finder for lower-value awards in England, Find a Tender for higher-value awards UK-wide, and Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI for the devolved nations | Every published award, filtered by CPV code — 79600000 and 79620000 for recruitment |
| 2. Export, remove repeats, then count | The CSV download on each service, or the open data in the Contracts Finder collection. Match rows on buyer, supplier, title and award date, and keep one | Awards per supplier, each award counted once — the same contract is often published on more than one portal, and a ranking that keeps both copies counts the win twice |
| 3. Merge the records | By hand, against Companies House numbers | One row per company rather than one per spelling or registration |
| 4. Check the buyer spread | A second export per leading supplier, grouped by buyer | Whether a leader wins broadly or through one relationship |
Search by CPV code rather than keyword. Recruitment notices are titled by the role filled — "Payroll Administrator", "Executive search" — so a keyword search for "recruitment" misses most of them. Steps three and four are the ones most rankings skip, and the next two sections show what each one changes.
The ranking
The seven suppliers with the most UK public sector recruitment and temporary staffing awards from 2023 to 2025, counting awards whose supplier carries a company identifier. Seven rather than ten, because below 39 awards the counts close up — Adecco UK on 34, Allen Lane on 32 — and the order can no longer be separated from suppliers the ranking does not show. Read places three to five as a group: they sit within five awards of each other.
| Rank as recorded | Supplier | Awards, 2023 to 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hays Specialist Recruitment (two records merged) | 194 |
| 2 | Reed Specialist Recruitment | 137 |
| 3 | GatenbySanderson | 64 |
| 4 | IRG Advisors (two records merged) | 62 |
| 5 | LA International Computer Consultants | 59 |
| 6 | Michael Page International Recruitment | 41 |
| 7 | SThree Partnership | 39 |
Hays is the case for step three. Its main record holds 182 awards; a further 12 sit under the same company number written without its leading zeros, a second record that no automatic match joins to the first. IRG Advisors moves from fifth to fourth once its second record, 14 awards, is added to the 48 in its main one. Unmerged rankings understate exactly the suppliers that win often enough to be recorded more than one way.
A ranking from award data also counts framework appointments as wins. Hays's record includes 15 and Reed's 16: places on a framework, each recorded as an award, none of them a guarantee of work.
What the count hides
A count says how often a supplier wins, not from whom. Grouping each leader's 2023 to 2025 recruitment awards by buyer shows four very different kinds of competitor.
| Supplier | Awards | From its largest buyer | That buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hays Specialist Recruitment | 194 | 127 | UK Shared Business Services |
| Reed Specialist Recruitment | 137 | 103 | UK Shared Business Services |
| LA International Computer Consultants | 59 | 47 | UK Shared Business Services |
| SThree Partnership | 39 | 30 | Transport for Greater Manchester |
| Michael Page International Recruitment | 41 | at least 11 | UK Shared Business Services |
| IRG Advisors | 62 | at least 11 | Financial Conduct Authority |
| GatenbySanderson | 64 | 3, the largest visible | Government Legal Department and the Competition and Markets Authority, tied |
UK Shared Business Services awarded 417 recruitment and temporary staffing contracts in the period, more than any other UK buyer; the next, Transport for Greater Manchester, awarded 53. Its notices are titled by the single role being filled and cite Crown Commercial Service framework references such as RM6160 and RM6277 — "GSS24260 - RM6277 - Payroll Administrator" is typical. A count at that buyer therefore measures placements called off under a framework at least as much as competitions won against the field.
Strip that buyer out and the shape changes. Hays keeps 67 awards from other buyers, Reed 34 and LA International 12. SThree's count is concentrated in the same way, with 30 of its 39 from Transport for Greater Manchester, all in 2025. GatenbySanderson and IRG Advisors show the opposite pattern: their visible award titles are mostly executive and non-executive search, and their awards are spread across departments, regulators, councils and universities.
What this means for a bidder
The competitor that matters is the one winning from your buyers, not the one at the top of a national list. If you sell temporary or interim staff into central government, the leaders' counts tell you that much of that work flows as call-offs through national frameworks, and that the route in is a place on the framework or its successor rather than out-bidding Hays or Reed contract by contract.
If you sell executive or specialist search, the field is wider than the ranking makes it look. The suppliers winning that work spread their awards across many buyers a few at a time, so each buyer's next appointment is a separate award rather than part of one entrenched relationship.
What this data cannot tell you
Every count is a floor. The ranking counts awards whose supplier carries a company identifier, and many published awards do not; suppliers that often win without one are undercounted.
Records split. The two merges here are the ones the ranking shows; a record outside the top fifty cannot be merged in. IRG Advisors' second record has a malformed identifier and was matched by name, so whether any of its 14 awards also sit in the main record could not be checked — 48 is the certain floor. A further 10 awards are recorded to Hays plc, a separately registered company, and are not added to Hays Specialist Recruitment.
Where a supplier's record is longer than the data returns, its largest-buyer figure is stated as at least, or as the largest visible. Shares for Hays, Reed, LA International and SThree are exact for these codes and years.
A count is not a value. One award can be a single interim placement or a multi-year managed service, and this ranking weighs them equally. That is deliberate: published values in this sector include framework ceilings in the tens of billions of pounds, attributed to every supplier on the panel, which makes a value ranking meaningless.
FAQ
How do I see which competitors are winning UK public sector contracts in my sector?
Search awarded notices on Contracts Finder, Find a Tender and the devolved portals by your sector's CPV codes, export them, and count awards per supplier after merging records that belong to the same company. Then group each leading supplier's awards by buyer: the count shows how often it wins, and the buyer spread shows whether it is a competitor you will meet widely or one built on a single relationship.
Who wins the most UK public sector recruitment contracts?
By award count from 2023 to 2025, Hays Specialist Recruitment with 194 across two merged records and Reed Specialist Recruitment with 137, followed by GatenbySanderson with 64, IRG Advisors with 62 and LA International with 59. Most of the top two's awards came from one buyer, UK Shared Business Services. All counts are floors.
Does a framework appointment count as winning a contract?
In award data, yes: a place on a framework is published as an award and counted as a win, though it guarantees no work. Hays's record includes 15 and Reed's 16. To see who is converting framework places into work, look for the call-off awards that follow, which name the buyer and the role.
Why rank suppliers by award count rather than contract value?
Because published values are distorted by framework agreements, which publish one ceiling covering every supplier appointed to them. In recruitment those ceilings run to tens of billions of pounds per supplier. A count has no such distortion, though it weighs a small placement and a large contract equally.
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