National recruitment firm Search Consultancy has launched an executive search and selection arm.

The division will focus on roles above £75,000 a year and will employ around 15 consultants across the UK.

Grahame Caswell, Search's chief executive officer, said there is a significant gap in the market for roles between £70,000 and £140,000 - a niche Search hopes to exploit. "Some of the larger headhunting companies are only interested in salaries of £150,000 and over, while mainstream consultancies only tend to service the market up to about the £65,000 level," he said.

The move marks a change in direction for Search, which has 12 UK branches focusing on junior to middle-management. It hopes the search and selection division will enable it to recruit "from divisional head down to the office junior".

Jeremy Lennard, who previously worked for Michael Page, will manage the new division, which will operate initially from Search's headquarters in Manchester.