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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.

13 November 2023
Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Creative/Digital/Media, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms

MSP market report reveals vendor consolidation as trend for 2024

Kaseya, a global provider of unified IT management and security software for MSPs, small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) and mid-market enterprises (MMEs), has released its third annual ‘Datto Global State of the Managed Service Provider: Trends and Forecasts for 2024 Report’, which surveyed 1,575 MSPs worldwide about what keeps them up at night. The survey provides an in-depth look at the current state of the MSP market, demonstrating the critical role MSPs play in the overall success for small and mid-size businesses, as well as how the landscape has evolved and what the industry can expect in the coming year.

An MSP delivers services, such as network, application, infrastructure and security, via ongoing and regular support and active administration on customers’ premises, in their MSP’s data centre (hosting), or in a third-party data centre. Recruitment firms often use MSPs to service their critical IT needs.

“While MSPs have long been the unsung heroes of tech, this year’s survey results clearly speak to a growing understanding of the critical role technology plays in a sustainable business,” said Kaseya’s Holly Bateman. “With revenues and competition on the rise, and a focus on the need for a superior customer experience, MSPs have a front row seat to what makes their customers successful. As a result, these MSPs have a clear view into what keeps a major cornerstone of our economy – small and mid-size businesses – running.”

According to the report, the MSP industry has exploded over the last few years with major growth in 2023, despite a difficult economic climate. In North America, 68% of MSPs experienced a revenue increase, and among them, 38% saw their revenue grow by more than 10%. Likewise, the revenue increase was also significant in Europe. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of MSPs in Europe experienced year-over-year revenue growth, and among them, 37% of those experienced an increase of more than 10%.

At the same time, the survey shows that competition is stiff. More than a third (35%) of MSPs globally cite competition as the biggest challenge, up from 29% last year. While seen as a challenge, MSPs are harnessing this competition to drive innovation and are offering solutions to better meet their clients’ needs, with 91% regarding customer experience as a high or top priority.

With the IT needs of SMBs and MMEs constantly changing, the main priorities that stood out for IT professionals to keep in mind in the coming year include:

  • Embrace vendor consolidation 74% of respondents said they prefer to use fewer vendors to meet their technology needs – up from 64% in 2022. Fewer vendors mean a streamlined supply chain, improving procurement, delivery, deployment, asset management and services.
  • Expand the service portfolio Top services that respondents anticipate adding to their portfolios include collaboration software (27%), business intelligence or analytics software (22%), and incident response and forensics (22%).
  • Embrace cloud migration Roughly half of the respondents report that 50% or more of their clients are shifting their workloads to the cloud. MSPs in North America anticipate the most significant shift in cloud migration in the next three years, driven by clients adopting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and migrating databases and email servers to the cloud. Nearly half of the respondents (47%) predict that 75% to 99% of their client base will move workloads to the cloud in the next three years.
  • Address cybersecurity concerns 28% of respondents cited their customers’ lack of concern about cyber-risks as a major cybersecurity challenge. It underscores the pressing need for MSPs to be equipped with the tools and knowledge to educate their customers effectively. 

“As we head into the end of the year and the start of 2024, we can all learn from the stories, challenges and successes of the MSPs shaping the future of IT services. We hope that this report will shed light on this thriving industry that is currently experiencing more growth potential than ever before,” added Pateman.

13 November 2023
Public sector, Education, Commercial & office support, IT/Telecoms

The Protocol Group launches in education sector

The Protocol Group provides staff members for all levels of education, ranging from nursery level, through to school level, all the way to higher education and special education needs.

The roles the group covers include teaching staff and other staff needed for the running of any education institution, such as groundskeepers, lunch staff, cleaning teams and more.

From a team built on nearly three decades of experience, they will be based out of seven offices in London, Manchester, Hertfordshire, Aberdeen, Birmingham and Stamford, as well as its head office in Nottingham.

The Protocol Group recently announced the launch of two of three subsidiary businesses, Bookmark and eSafeguarding, which respectively act as a recruitment database and background checking service.

There will also be a third business within the group announced in December.

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10 November 2023
Oil & gas/Energy, Engineering, Charity & not-for-profit

Green means go for UK jobs

A foundation aimed at supporting the UK’s transition to future green skills and jobs, including the pilot of a green internship scheme next year, has been launched.

Business and civil organisations including PageGroup, City and Guilds, PwC, the Living Wage Foundation, RenewableUK and Lightcast are supporting the Green Jobs Foundation in its aim of accelerating “the awareness and access to green jobs in the UK”.

The charity has been created as a personal drive by PageGroup head of sustainability and corporate treasury Joanna Bonnett.

Formally launched at the Eden Project on 2 November as part of the Anthropy Gathering, an annual event dedicated to inspiring a better Britain, the foundation was formed at the end of 2022. With the foundation’s launch was its first ‘Green Jobs: State of the Nation Report’, which details where in the UK the number of green jobs are growing and their economic value. The report also emphasises skills development and reskilling as part of the requirement to progress.

Bonnett said: “As a nation, we must invest in green skills as the workforce moves towards a skills-first agenda and provide workers with sustainable jobs aligned to their personal values and opportunities they can be proud of.”

The foundation’s focus is on “jobs in this emerging economy, the skills workers will require, how these skills are acquired, and successful pathways from the old to the new economy”, a foundation statement said. “It was formed as a ‘think and do’ foundation with the goal of helping to tackle the practical issues around the fundamental question of our time: how the UK and the rest of the world can successfully move to a low-carbon and then zero-carbon society, whilst leaving no one behind in a Just Transition.”

The report provides case studies of how green skills are being taught at community level in the UK, such as in Maidenhead, where a Green Skills Library is being created. Local residents can access free courses to learn how to upcycle, repair and create, and in future will be offered free group training in organic gardening, reupholstery and common repairs, as a result of recent funding.

Donna Stimson, the founder of the Green Skills Library, is a former councillor and sustainability cabinet member for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Stimson said: “Content in the courses can also provide individuals with new skills, which could lead to sustainable green jobs.”

The UK government plans to create 2m green jobs by 2030 and 6.9m green jobs by 2050.

“This transition of employment will create significant opportunities as well as challenges, which we must overcome by working together,” the statement said. “Students looking to enter the workforce and workers of today will be required to reskill and upskill to be match-fit for tomorrow.”

For more about the ‘Green Jobs: State of the Nation Report’ and the foundation, see The Big Story here.

Image credit | Getty
10 November 2023
IT/Telecoms, HR

Institute of Job Aggregators launches to support global industry

At the event in Central London, Mike Wall (pictured), chair of the IJA, said: “Having now spoken to many aggregators and experts in the recruitment sector it is great to see there is an appetite for an institute to allow credible players to work together and ensure the industry continues to thrive.”

The inspiration behind the IJA was to ensure jobseeker traffic, “in a world of ever-advancing AI and bots running rampant across the internet”, was validated and the quality monitored, Wall explained.

According to the IJA, the job aggregator industry is a multi-billion-pound industry and a key part of global recruitment. The institute plans to help protect the industry by validating the credible players and giving them a platform to discuss and manage issues that are impacting the industry. 

Wall added that the institute plans to help “streamline multi-used technology to help standardise usage and settings, and it will facilitate issues like bad debtors and action to halt traffic across all platforms and retrieve the debt.

“We are here to support, grow and drive change in the global job aggregator industry and to do this we need our member's expertise, knowledge and support.

“We are now aiming to form a committee of leading industry people and to help them set the agenda of the institute based on common issues and goals.”

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