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New to Market

25 April 2025
Construction & property, Graduates/Apprentices/School leavers

National student lettings agency launches apprenticeship scheme

In a bid to support young people and grow skilled and knowledgeable individuals for the student lettings sector, loc8me recently launched its 18-month programme, which is open to anyone aged 16-18. The scheme will offer hands-on experience, mentorship and the opportunity to engage in paid work.

Raffaele Russo, founder of loc8me, said: “We’re thrilled to launch this apprenticeship programme, giving young professionals a real chance to learn, grow and begin building a career in an exciting industry.

“Now more than ever, young people are seeking opportunities, guidance and goals to pursue. With this programme, we’re investing in their future – and in the future of the lettings sector.”

Apprentices will have the chance to study the theoretical and practical elements of the lettings industry, and on starting, they will be given a mentor from the loc8me team to support their development via regular meetings throughout the course.

loc8me now operates in 13 major university cities across the UK, including Loughborough, Durham, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leicester, Hull, Bath and Bristol.

Freya Watson-Russo, academy co-ordinator, said: "At loc8me, we’re committed to nurturing the next generation of letting agents. … We’re giving young people the chance to build a future, gain confidence and carve their own path.”

Founded in 2008 by Russo, loc8me manages more than 2,500 properties and employs more than 75 staff members.

(L-r) Apprentice Ollie Coe, loc8me's marketing assistant and academy co-ordinator Freya Watson-Russo and apprentice Isabel Tebbutt ©loc8me

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14 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering

NEW TO THE MARKET: 14-18 APRIL 2025

• Manufacturing and engineering specialist Busy Bee Recruitment has relaunched its website. The refreshed online platform has a modern design and enhanced user functionality, offering an intuitive browsing experience that makes it easier than ever to explore current vacancies, submit CVs quickly and securely, access expert recruitment advice via a blog and submit vacancies directly online.

• Deel, a global payroll and HR provider, has launched a suite of AI-driven products to help companies hire, manage, and pay international teams. Deel will offer an all-in-one global workforce platform integrating payroll, HR, and IT, designed to support compliant operations across borders. Key updates include: Real-Time Payroll in over 53 markets (expanding to 130+ by 2027), offering instant calculations and faster processing; Deel PEO for offering top-tier benefits without enterprise-level costs; Benefits Admin for simplified, compliant benefits management across countries; Deel Talent for streamlined recruitment via trusted agency networks; Workforce Planning, Compensation, and Engage tools – powered by AI – for smarter headcount strategy, global pay management, and employee development; IT Lifecycle Management features like MDM, IAM, and EPP, supporting global device and security control.

11 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, IT/Telecoms

Spotted Zebra merges Interview Intelligence and Assessment in one platform

This is technology that transcribes, analyses and evaluates conversations through an AI-powered lens. The merger connects assessment results with interview data, addressing the growing challenge enterprise talent leaders face: making confident, objective hiring decisions when candidate information can be fragmented across multiple tools.

In a statement, Spotted Zebra says that enterprise talent acquisition teams are facing twin pressures from AI-generated candidate applications and deepening skills shortages. 

The launch responds to a critical market challenge, the statement continues; while more than three in four businesses report widening skills gaps, employers are inundated with applications with around half of all jobseekers using AI tools to apply for roles. Current solutions force companies to choose between expensive, disconnected systems or compromise on either assessment breadth and depth, or a scalable interview process and structure.

“We’ve integrated Interview Intelligence with Assessment because our enterprise customers are facing unprecedented challenges in talent acquisition,” said Ian Monk, co-founder and CEO of Spotted Zebra. “By unifying these previously siloed technologies, we’re enabling talent teams to make data-informed decisions based on a complete picture of each candidate’s capabilities.”

Unlike standard Interview Intelligence tools that primarily transcribe conversations, Spotted Zebra’s implementation establishes a data framework that truly connects skill measurements across different evaluation methods:

  • Real-time skill evidence mapping: Comprehensive role skills profiles are automatically created thanks to AI-powered intake meetings between recruiters and hiring managers. 
  • AI-assisted interview questioning technology: The AI-powered Interview Guides automatically generate targeted question paths for specific role skills profiles and each candidate.
  • Consolidated hiring evidence dashboard: The Decision Kit combines summarised skill data from both assessment scores and interview evidence, weighting each source appropriately based on predictive validity for specific skill types. 

According to the company statement, AI in Spotted Zebra enhances human decision-making, ensuring the final call on a candidate’s suitability for a role is objective, data-backed and always in the hands of the hiring team.

Headquartered in the UK, Spotted Zebra was launched in 2020 by Monk and co-founder and chief commercial officer Nick Shaw.

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10 April 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Executive search

NEW TO THE MARKET: 7-11 APRIL 2025

• UK recruitment firm HRGO has launched ‘Betty’, an AI agent tackling recruitment ghosting by ensuring all job applicants receive feedback. Since its December 2024 launch, Betty has provided personalised insights to over 40,000 candidates. A survey of 1,000 users found 90% valued the feedback, addressing a major frustration in the hiring process at scale. Betty was named after Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Parkinson, the founder of HRGO back in 1957.

• Recruitment firm Sowena Group has moved into new headquarters in Manchester city centre. Perran Cooke launched Sowena Group last summer after more than a decade in the recruitment industry, including roles as regional MD for the North at executive search company PSD Group and as a director at Axon Moore. Sowena now has a team of five and has taken office space at The Tootal Buildings on Oxford Street. The company statement says Sowena Group is expected to deliver more than £650k in revenue this year.

Senior recruitment consultants Dave Kreitz and Mackenzie Harrop have joined Sowena in recent weeks, along with Leah Allen as head of marketing and Megan Buckley as marketing executive. Cooke said he expects the team to grow to 10 by the end of this year, creating roles for recruitment consultants, back office and support staff, market research specialists and a non-executive director. Sowena Group focuses on senior finance posts in high-growth and private equity and venture capital-backed businesses across the North-West and beyond.

12 August 2019
Public sector, Oil & gas/Energy, Transport & logistics, Life sciences, Education, Engineering, Construction & property, Commercial & office support, Executive search, IT/Telecoms, HR, Healthcare/Medical, Apprentices/Grads/School leavers, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 12-16 AUGUST 2019

• Global talent acquisition and executive search consultancy C4S Search has launched an accounting & finance division, headed up by Marc Harris.

• Birmingham-based nursing recruitment agency CareNow has introduced an initiative that offers agency nurses on its books a range of additional benefits in appreciation of the hours and hard work that they put in to providing patient care.

The scheme, which includes gift vouchers and luxury weekends away, enables nurses to accrue loyalty points according to how many hours they work. These can be redeemed for rewards such as a shopping voucher after 200 hours’ work or a weekend away when they achieve 365 hours.

• Recruitment and distribution firm Challenge-trg Group is offering English lessons to its non-native speaking drivers and warehouse staff in a bid to meet the needs of its culturally diverse team. The training is being offered by Phoenix Training Services, which was acquired by Challenge-trg Group earlier this year.

• US healthcare recruiter Cross Country Healthcare has rebranded its Medical Doctor Associates (MDA) business as Cross Country Locums. As well as introducing a new brand and visual identity, Cross Country Locums has also launched an enhanced website, which will provide a more intuitive job search and application experience for healthcare professionals.

• The Exam Results Helpline provided by the National Careers Service has partnered with charity Mental Health UK to help students make the most of the opportunities their results will provide. The helpline is manned by careers advisers offering free, impartial advice once results are out, and is available to all parents, teachers and students.

People can use the helpline to get advice on what to do if a student does better or worse than expected in their exams, or if they get the results they hoped for but aren’t sure what steps to take next.

The helpline number (0800 100 900) will be available between 8am-10pm from 14 August, the day certain vocational results are issued and close on 29 August, following GCSE results day. Further info can also be found via the National Careers Service website.

• Financial services, private and public sector recruiter Investigo Group has launched Investigo Consulting Solutions – a consulting service that provides long-term project consultancy aimed at transforming and future-proofing businesses from across industry sectors.

Services include full project lifecycle and service delivery, from conception and planning, to solution, on-the-job training and mentoring programmes to address skills gaps and ensure sustained and future growth, plus market intelligence through research and white papers, roundtable discussions and industry events to support the Investigo-client partnership.

• Pan European specialist recruiter NonStop Recruitment has opened an office in Boston, MA. This is the first office outside Europe for NonStop and is a response to increasing client demand, specifically within the life sciences industry. The office is currently headed up by Henry Brodie, with two other consultants.

NonStop also recently opened an office in Bucharest, Romania. Both these new offices are operating under the NonStop Consulting name.

• Digital education and skills provider QA has launched an apprenticeship clearing helpline offering students advice about their options from apprentice alumni and QA experts.

• Insurance specialist Qdos has launched a commercial services division offering consultancy and training services, as well as a range of insurances for agencies, including IR35 insurance and professional indemnity, public and employers liability insurances.

• Life sciences, renewable energy and ICT staffing specialist Quanta Consultancy Services has launched a new brand identity and website. The site features improved navigation with features added to improve ease of use, such as the messaging feature on consultant bios. 

While the firm’s logo remains the same, Quanta adds its motif has evolved into a modern icon that can be displayed in any of the new Quanta colours to represent its team ethos and their five values.

• Project services specialist Rider Hunt International has announced the launch of a new corporate brand identity and name. The organisation, a subsidiary of Wood, will now be known as rhi.

rhi specialises in providing project services to energy and natural resource customers with global expertise in quantity surveying, estimating and projects controls, contract management and recruitment. It operates across the full asset life cycle from concept to decommissioning, through a network of offices in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia.

• Hundreds of local people in Birmingham will have the chance to learn construction skills and help build more than 1,400 new homes on one of the UK’s second city’s biggest construction sites thanks to a new training hub. The £100k hub, funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) through the Construction Skills Fund, will offer local people free construction job training and a guaranteed job interview after completing a 20-day course.

It will be based on-site at the Perry Barr Residential Scheme, where £496m is being invested by Birmingham City Council, central government and the WMCA in a bid to regenerate the area and deliver long-lasting benefits for local people.

5 August 2019
Legal, HR

Emma Watson launches helpline for those being harassed at work

The new helpline aims to plug a gap in the availability of legal advice so women can access the help they need to hold their employer and harasser to account.

The Guardian reports that Watson helped to kickstart the advice line, which is backed by Time’s Up UK’s justice and equality fund and managed by Rosa, the UK Fund for Women and Girls, with advice provided by the charity Rights of Women.

Watson said: “It finally feels like people are realising the scale of the problem, and I’m certainly hopeful that with global standards such as the recent International Labour Organization treaty on harassment at work we’ll start to see a new climate of prevention and accountability on this issue domestically.”

The new advice line number is 020 7490 0152.

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5 August 2019
Retail, IT/Telecoms, Hospitality/Leisure

NEW TO THE MARKET: 5-9 AUGUST 2019

• Catapult, a UK-based flexible work platform that caters to hospitality and retail employers, has launched in Berlin, Germany. Germany is the second market for Catapult after the UK.

• IT recruiter Corecom Consulting has relocated to the Yorkshire Hub at Yorkshire House on Greek Street, home to a solar farm in Leeds City Centre.

30 July 2019
Oil & gas/Energy, Transport & logistics, Life sciences, Engineering, Construction & property, Executive search, IT/Telecoms, HR, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 29 JULY-2 AUGUST 2019

• Airswift has opened an office in downtown Denver. The office will be staffed by existing members of the Airswift team, who will relocate from Houston. Paul Carr, divisional manager – Rockies, moves over to lead the team, supported by Alixandra Conyers and Jennifer Perez with a focus on direct hires and contract hires respectively.

The global workforce solutions provider for the energy, process and infrastructure sectors plans to make a new, local hire early next year. The new office will be located at The Wells Fargo Building, 1700 Lincoln Street, Denver and Airswift’s eighth office in North America.

• Talent operating system Beamery is launching Careers Sites, a new solution that allows organisations to personalise the content and job search experience for different candidates based on their location, browsing history, language and application history.

Careers Sites enables passive candidates to join talent networks, sign up for custom job alerts, or pick up applications from where they left off with a shopping cart-like experience. Automation technology also enables companies to auto-populate talent pools and personalise campaigns to nurture the prospects that convert.

Recruiting teams can update the on-page experience without specialised IT expertise, with a drag-and-drop content editor, and also have access to analytics to help them demonstrate the effectiveness of their Careers Sites, with attribution reporting, conversion tracking and page analytics to identify bottlenecks.

• Recruitment and workforce solutions provider Fircroft has opened a new Manchester City Centre office at 55 Spring Gardens. The firm says the new office will act as a base for Fircroft’s UK and European permanent recruitment division as it diversifies and expands beyond its traditional oil & gas roots and develops a stronger presence in the automotive, defence, construction, ICT, and bulk and speciality chemicals industries.

• Background check and drug screening solutions provider First Advantage has launched Verified!, a new verifications process that aims to cut turnaround times from days to minutes with the help of its FCRA-approved proprietary database.

The solution uses First Advantage’s existing education and employment dataset to confirm education and employment information, cutting customer turnaround time and allowing customers to lock in candidates before they move on to other potential job opportunities.

• Recruitment giant Hays has introduced a new benefit ensuring all Hays employees in the UK and Ireland have access to up to three private online GP appointments per year via AXA PPP Healthcare’s Doctor@Hand.

The new benefit, where staff can see a doctor anytime and where it suits them, forms part of a redevelopment of the firm’s benefits for UK staff. Working with external partner Benefex, Hays built a platform linking directly to its systems, which is accessible to staff on the go, from home or via an app. The platform, MyChoice, coincides with ongoing investment into employee wellbeing across Hays and a new employee engagement tool, which has been rolled out globally.

• Construction staffing specialist Thorn Baker Group is reopening its dedicated construction brand in Nottingham and welcomes back building sector specialist Demi Harman, following a 10-year gap. Harman has re-joined Thorn Baker to head up the new team and will be joined by colleague and fit-out recruitment consultant Khial Farrow, who will be relocating to Nottingham from London to help build the team.

• Global recruitment consultancy Robert Walters Group has launched Walters People in London. Walters People London will initially focus on contract and permanent recruitment in accounting & finance and business support fields.

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