There are fortunes to be made in recruitment, as the nine recruiters featured in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List can testify.

Philippe Foriel-Destezet of Adecco topped the list of recruiters, with £1.62bn – he is also the seventh richest person in the UK.

Many listed had also featured in previous years. Former Tory party treasurer Lord Ashcroft’s £76m stake in Carlisle Holdings forms a small part of his £813m fortune, placing him at 25th in the list [pictured] .

Others who have made their millions from staffing services include Ronnie Frost (£186m, 171), once a chicken salesman, who built up Hays, and Hays investor relations director Graham Williams (£52m, 720).

As one of the few people actually making money out of the internet, founder of IT jobsite Jobserve Robbie Cowling almost doubled his fortune over the last year, with £100m, up almost 500 places to 333rd in the Rich List.

Alexander Badenoch, founder of accountancy and legal recruiter Badenoch & Clark made £56m (676) from selling the company in 1997.

Also listed were Gerry Mason of engineering recruiter Morson Human Resources (£55m, 681) and Tim Watts of Birmingham-based generalist recruiter Pertemps (£40m, 874).

Perhaps more notable were this year’s absences. The only representative of the IT and telecoms recruitment industry this year was Neil Frankin (720) of Dataworkforce, whose fortune halved in the last year from £103m to £52m.

Victims of the downturn in the IT industry, the three partners in the IT recruitment S3 Group, with a combined fortune of £210m last year, are now absent from the list, as are three stakeholders of IT recruiter Harvey Nash.

Other victims of the shaky economy include James Caan, founder of recruitment company Alexander Mann, and Peter Hearn, chairman of the troubled IT recruiter PSD group.