Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) activity will continue to be headline news for the recruitment industry, pumping energy and injecting impetus into the sector, as the need to meet client demands and the opportunity for financial gain go hand-in-hand.

And to gain greater insight into the topic, Recruiter is conducting an M&A Barometer survey alongside law firm Osborne Clarke.

Andy Hogarth, the chief executive officer of recruitment and outsourcing group Staffline, tells Recruiter: “I think there’s likely to be continuing activity certainly; it’s a very dynamic industry, there’s a lot of legislation and a lot of changes coming through from government and from clients.”

Staffline has completed a number of deals in the last 18 months, and Hogarth comments that “clients seem to be aggregating their spend to earn a better deal”. 

Hamish Perry, a partner in the recruitment team at City law firm Charles Russell, tells Recruiter the team hopes to complete “in the region of four to six” deals this year, compared to three or four in 2012 – itself an improvement on 2011 and before.

He adds that that the deals the firm is working on cover “a broad spectrum” and are not confined to any particular sector within the staffing industry.

Andy Clarke, a director at international investment bank Altium Capital, notes that “there’s been plenty of activity” in the oil & gas recruitment space recently – deals he has been involved in for Oil and Gas Job Search this year, and Fircroft in 2012, to name just two.

He tells Recruiter that investors “seem to be interested in businesses with attractive niche markets”, and that “good visibility of income”, provided by operating the payrolling activity for contract workers, is also attractive.

This year has seen the high profile management buy-out of creative and marketing recruiter Major Players, as well as a trio of executive search buy-outs in as many weeks involving The Jacobson Group, Hitchenor Wakeford and Sheffield Haworth.

You have the opportunity to contribute to the most definitive research into recruitment sector M&A, with responses to the survey for the Barometer needed by the end of this Sunday, 28 April.