Recent financial results from some major UK recruitment companies show they are increasingly reliant on international markets for their growth and profits.

Hays' latest quarterly results showed that its international business now accounts from 42% of net fee income, compared to 33% a year ago.

Similarly, Robert Walters most recent figures show that 62% of the group's net fee income is now generated outside of the UK, with Asia Pacific now the largest region in terms of both net fee income and profitability.

Robert Walters recently opened an office in Kowloon, its second office in Hong Kong, and acquired a majority interest in a specialist recruitment consultancy with offices in Shanghai and Suzhou, the company's first offices in mainland China. Last year, it opened new offices in Madrid and Osaka, Japan.

So what is driving these UK companies overseas to the four corners of the globe?

Alan Bannatyne, Robert Walter's group finance director, told Recruiter that the company's current expansion was a continuation of company founder Robert Walter's original vision, which had seen it open offices in Amsterdam and Brussels as long ago as the late 1980s and early 1990s.

However, he said there were several reasons for expanding abroad today. "The first was diversification from what looks like a very uncertain economic outlook in the UK," said Bannatyne. This allowed the company to spread its risk more broadly. As a statement issued by Robert Walters' board at the time of its recent results explained. While it said it "was mindful" of economic downturns within individual markets, the diversified nature of the group provided "a level of comfort" that in the absence of a global downturn, it could be "cautiously confident" for future business prospects.

Another reason for expanding overseas was that it allowed the company to source candidates abroad and to move them around the world. Last, said Bannatyne, was because "clients like the international brand".

Tim Smeaton, chief operating officer at the Hydrogen Group, told Recruiter's Annual Forum that an important reason for expanding overseas was to provide career opportunities for the company's staff.

Bannatyne said that apart from small acquisitions like the recent one in China, the company would continue to follow a policy of organic growth, allowing it to meet the needs of its international clients.

Bannatyne said that apart from banking, which had seen a slow down, all the other sectors in which the company operated continued to show strong international growth.

Bannatyne predicted that the trend for more of Robert Walters' business to be generated overseas was set to continue. "We are seeing faster rates of growth outside the UK, and opening up in more and more territories, so it follows that a smaller and smaller proportion of our business will be in the UK, and more in the UK." However, Bannatyne added: "The UK will remain an important market."

Paul Venables, Hays' finance director, told Recruiter that the company was participating in what he described as "the birth on an industry" in continental Europe.

Venables said that although Europe was "about 10 years" behind the UK in terms of specialist recruitment agencies, this was changing. Changes in legislation, deregulation, and employers' growing recognition of the benefits of having a flexible workforce were combining to provide recruiters with great opportunities throughout the continent.

With 80% of jobs currently filled by in-house HR departments on the continent, these opportunities could only grow, said Venables.

"Over time more and more jobs will be filled by recruitment companies, enabling us to build a business," he said.

On the back of this, Venables said that Hays' strategy was to grow the European business by 30% a year, compared to 10% in the UK.

With the company's business in Asia Pacific also expected to out-perform the UK, Venables expected the percentage of the company's net fee income generated overseas to exceed 50% "within the next two years. It would then move quickly on to 60% and then 75%", he predicted.

Simon Coton, managing director of NES Global, told Recruiter that the company planned to open 8-10 new offices overseas within the next two years. He said the reasons for overseas expansion were to follow projects they were working on, to follow clients and to source skilled talent they could use around the world. Coton said that one advantage of geographical diversification was "it gives you more stability against economic downturns in any particular region".

Coton said that even though the global division had grown by 30% in the last 12 months, there was a lot of scope for this to continue.

Construction recruiter Hill McGlynn already has seven offices abroad, and recently opened an office in Calgary, Canada. However, international development director Peter Marston told Recruiter that this was only the start. The company plans to add to its five offices in Australia and two in the Middle East, by opening an office in Hong Kong in September, followed by one in Singapore.

"The company hopes to have 10 offices abroad within a year," said Marston. He said that with 80-85% of the company's business in the UK "part of the reason" was to "recession proof" the company from any downturn in the economy here.

However, Marston said that "it wasn't about having the most offices in the world", but "about bringing what we do well into new markets".

Nor was the company adopting a gung-ho approach, but taking a step-by-step approach from a solid base. "We are not going to open in China until Hong Kong is a success," he said.

According to Marston, British recruiters have the processes and systems to be successful, as well as a entrepreneurial and sales driven culture that travels well overseas.

The proof of this is that at least 50% of recruiters in Australia, and 80% in the Middle East are off-shoots of UK recruiters, he says. Marston said that business abroad could be very profitable. For example, he said that because salaries have risen, the company now earned "good fees" in the Middle East for supplying Asians to work there. A typical fee for placing an Indian planner there was £4,500, he said.

Marston said that as long as you controlled your costs, "expanding overseas was "not ridiculously expensive".

However, he acknowledged there was a risk that if you grew too fast the right people would not be in place to run the business.

As for a global recession, that might ruin the company's expansion plans, Marston said apart from the US, there were few signs of it. "I don't believe anywhere is going to have a recession apart from the US. There's good income that's not going to be affected by the US.

"Canada is taking a bit of a hit, but western Canada is great, and Australia and the Middle East is growing," he added.

If Marston's analysis of these markets is correct, the rise and rise of UK recruiters abroad, and their growing reliance on the their overseas activities looks set not only to continue, but to accelerate.