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20 May 2025
Oil & gas/Energy, Transport & logistics

International manufacturer invests £170m in North Wales facility

The UK and Welsh governments have welcomed the investment into a new facility from the international manufacturer.

The announcement comes as the UK and EU hold a summit to discuss future opportunities to boost economic growth.

The landmark development will produce more than 100,000 tonnes of non-combustible rock mineral wool insulation per year and create around 140 direct jobs, with more in local supply chains.

The announcement coincides with the UK-EU Summit that took place on Monday [19 May 2025].

Secretary of state for Wales Jo Stevens said: “This £170m investment by Knauf Insulation is fantastic news for North Wales and our UK government mission to drive economic growth.”

Using UK-First Submerged Arc Furnace technology, the new factory will produce non-combustible, low embodied carbon, recyclable rock mineral wool insulation to support the need for safer, more energy efficient and sustainable buildings.

The UK and Welsh government-backed North Wales Growth Deal and the Flintshire and Wrexham Investment Zone collectively support the decision by Knauf Insulation to lo-cate a second plant in the area.

As leaders in the production of sustainable building materials, Knauf Insulation’s expansion further supports the growing advanced manufacturing cluster in North Wales.

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20 May 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, IT/Telecoms

Human skills as important as ‘oven-ready’ tech skills

So says the CEO of the CIPD, the UK’s professional body for HR, learning & development, Peter Cheese.

Speaking last Friday [16 May 2025] at the Houses of Parliament launch of the UK Hiring Taskforce, Cheese told the 200 attendees that at the same time, however, instead of filling skills gaps, employers are also looking for potential in applicants through characteristics such as “attitude, aptitude to learn human skills like collaboration and communication, and critical thinking. The more we debate the future of work, the more we debate about AI impacting jobs and skills in the future, the more we are coming back to these core skills”.

Humanities knowledge is part of building such capabilities into organisations, Cheese said: “People talk now about the half-life of job skills is somewhere between three and four years. In other words, every three or four years, we’re going to have to retrain half of our workforce.”

Access to and retention of talent are a top issue for business leaders around the world, with “almost every organisation saying they can’t find all the skills. But then you question them on that, they say yes, we’ve been getting too focused on hiring what I’ve often described as ‘oven-ready employees’ and they don’t exist – partly because we are changing the nature of jobs at an ever-increasing rate”, Cheese said. “So, the reality of how we approach recruiting has got to be expanded from the point of view of the employers as well.”

He asked the audience: “So why do we seem to be reverting back to saying ‘I just want tech skills’? We know the world is not, unfortunately, going to be a better place if all we have are a lot of tech people. Frankly, we need humanity to work alongside that as well.”

Cheese has been appointed to the UK Hiring Taskforce steering committee.

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19 May 2025
Life sciences, Creative/Digital/Media

UK Hiring Taskforce launches to develop new hiring strategies

With 200 hiring leaders, recruiters, rec tech leaders and more in attendance, including Recruiter, the hiring taskforce kick-off also delivered the news that an association for recruitment technology providers is planned to launch in November “to have one voice with government, to give high risk assurance that they are people of good standing and to help us develop a rec tech roadmap”, said Keith Rosser, who as chair of the Better Hiring Institute is leading the joint force of parliamentarians and hiring leaders. 

“We want a national hiring strategy,” Rosser said in his address at the event. “What do we think the future looks like if we could start again – forget the baggage, forget the medieval CVs, the Victorian references, the industrial revolution, job adverts – and think about actually, what would starting again look like?

“And finally, a technology road map. What would rec tech look like if we had a magic wand? What do we need to consider? What do we need to debate?... What we want from you is your help shaping what needs to be considered, how we need to go forward, what are the things we really should be looking at?”

Organisers are hoping to gather concepts by November from the respective work groups, formed of people who sign up to participate, for strategy, technology and policy. “Those three work streams with then end in those three deliverables later in the year,” Rosser said.

“We want this to be the beginning of a new dawn,” he added. “We want to get leadership once more for the UK in hiring… It’s hard to imagine actually that once upon a time, the UK was a leader in this stuff… We just really haven’t moved forward. Today is our commitment to gain leadership once more.”

Viscount Camrose, shadow secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, will be the honorary president of the rec tech association when formed. 

Speaking on Friday at the taskforce launch, he said: “I’ve been worrying for years that the job market is too inefficient, but that it can be reduced in some sense, to a data problem. And I would love us to start making progress together in that director because actually, in a weird way, although it is a data problem, digitalisation and AI have made it worse. They have made it more difficult rather than less difficult, and I think we can go for some way this afternoon to starting that journey to correcting the problem.”

As examples, Viscount Camrose said: “Far too many jobs are far too overapplied; we see candidates receiving no response – even late on in the process, no response comes. And there are such huge advantages to all of us for doing that. First… if we are going to grow as an economy, we need to be more productive… and just placing people in jobs to which they are genuinely committed is going to boost productivity. 

“Second, economic inactivity. We have too many people who are economically inactive now, and how many of those people remain economically inactive because… it’s just too difficult to embark on the process of finding the next job. The easier we can make it [is] to everybody’s benefit. The third advantage is just national happiness.”

Also speaking at the event was Lord Chris Holmes, Paralympian swimming champion, who in 2023 introduced an AI regulation bill to address concerns about its development, fairness in use, privacy and other issues. He has since reintroduced it, terming it “light touch, right size regulation”, and believing that it has significant potential application in hiring. “If we get fairer hiring, if we get faster hiring, the aim for all of us today and for every day, we can truly have in the world the finest hiring ecosystem we can bring to bear,” he said.

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14 May 2025
Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering

NEW TO THE MARKET: 12-16 MAY 2025

• Global specialist recruitment company Eames Consulting has opened a new office in Philadelphia, focusing on technology and digital enablement. Located at the Wanamaker Building, 100 East Penn Square, this is the recruiter’s second US location, following its New York office, which opened in 2022. The Philadelphia team will be headed up by Steven Stahl, a highly experienced recruiter. Also joining are Sam Youngberg (managing consultant) and Callum Stainer (senior consultant), data and AI recruitment specialists.

• Eightfold AI, which helps organisations recruit and retain top talent, and upskill/reskill their entire workforce, has added two new foundational AI products to its portfolio. Expanding its capabilities in talent acquisition, Eightfold introduces AI Interviewer to automate candidate engagement and assessment, enhancing responsiveness and selection outcomes. The company has also launched Digital Twin, a personalised AI model that captures and applies employee knowledge across systems to drive real-time productivity and decision-making.

• SF Recruitment has opened a new East Midlands headquarters in Castle Donington, strategically positioned next to East Midlands Airport. The new hub unites the company’s Leicester and Nottingham teams, with the company broadening its expertise into STEM fields, including technology and engineering, alongside its core areas of finance, private equity and corporate services. Over 40 team members will be based at the new headquarters and plans for European growth are underway, according to the company statement.

12 October 2018
HR

LinkedIn launches new tools and upgrades products

These include changes to LinkedIn’s flagship product Recruiter where representative results are reflected when users search for a talent pool. This means, for example, if there are 6,500 engineers (40% women, 60% men), the recruiter will see 40% of women in each page of the search results to more fairly represent the available pool.

New reports and insights have also been added to the product enabling users to see how their jobs and InMail are performing from a gender perspective.

LinkedIn further announced it is building a new version of the Recruiter product that will bring sourced candidates, media leads and job applicants in one place. 

With regards to LinkedIn’s applicant tracking system Talent Hub, users can source candidates via Recruiter search, manage talent pipeline, collect feedback and extend an offer within the same platform.

They can also tap into LinkedIn’s data to get an accurate sense of the available talent pool and to see how candidates are engaging with their company, while the platform features a shared place for hiring notes and feedback aimed at fostering collaboration between recruiters, hiring managers, and others within the hiring team.

Finally, with regard to Skills Insights in LinkedIn Learning, LinkedIn is adding company skills within LinkedIn Learning Pro to help learning and development administrators develop their current workforce by identifying skills gaps within their organisation, and give them the ability to compare their workforce skills with competitors.

Meanwhile, new courses are being added on LinkedIn Learning aimed at helping hiring managers and leaders tackle unconscious bias in their organisations and create the best culture for hiring more diverse teams.

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12 October 2018
Graduates/Apprentices/School leavers

Start-up of the Month: GetaGraduateJob.com

The site complements Smart Resourcing Solutions’ work with employers, students and universities. The firm offers recruitment outsourcing, and designs exercises to test clients’ requirements for graduate vacancies; refreshing or designing scheme content; and training managers on recruitment techniques.

As for GetaGraduateJob.com, Milliken told Recruiter the site contains free resources for graduates to help them land a job. This includes CV templates, cover letters and an employer insight page, where employers can blog about their industry and graduate schemes. The site also contains a general blog page offering tips on an array of subjects including filling out application forms and taking part in video interviews.

Looking ahead, Milliken said the site would imminently be launching an eight-module online course for students taking them through the entire application process.

“It’s identifying what they want to do in module one…. what it is that they want to apply to all the way through to application form, online tests, CV, cover letter, LinkedIn, through to assessment centre and interview. Then how they would negotiate or manage their offer and then ideas around how to perform well when they start their job.

“That’s a very detailed course – so it’s eight modules long and we’ve had it accredited by [awarding body] AQA at level 3, which students can put on their CVs.”

8 October 2018
Retail, Transport & logistics, Engineering, Commercial & office support, Executive search, Industrial/Manufacturing, HR, Hospitality/Leisure

NEW TO THE MARKET: 8-12 OCTOBER 2018

• Multi-sector recruiter Berry Recruitment’s Brentwood-based team has moved offices. The team has relocated from Bates Industrial Estate in Harold Wood to 15 The Parade, Brentwood.

Initially it was a specialist agency for providing drivers, but as clients wanted extra services it has opened commercial and industrial divisions, and expanded to a team of six since its launch four years ago.

• Specialist recruitment and training provider Bluestones Staffing NI has opened an office in Mallusk Enterprise Park in Newtownabbey to complement its existing office network in South Belfast, East Belfast and Cookstown.

• Global executive search firm Odgers Berndtson has formed a partnership to help female managers working in hospitality and leisure break through into senior executive and board level roles. The search firm has partnered with hospitality trade association UKHospitality and employers BT Sport and hospitality marketing agency elliotts to launch an industry-wide mentoring initiative.

The goal is to provide women who want to be considered for senior management roles with outstanding mentoring, advice and motivation from objective mentors to help them achieve it. This is particularly important for the many women who work in very small companies where formal support may not otherwise be available.

The initiative follows talks between Odgers Berndtson, UKHospitality, BT Sport and elliotts.

• Multi-sector recruiter Search Consultancy has launched an aviation recruitment hub in Manchester Airport. The new hub will enable Search’s team to meet directly with clients and candidates, with the aim of streamlining the recruitment process and enhancing its service offering across Manchester.

The firm, which currently provides staffing solutions to all airports across the North and South of England, has premises in Gatwick and Heathrow airports. The new Manchester Airport hub, located in Terminal 2, is the company’s first North-West site that will be dedicated to filling positions in the aviation sector.

• Information security company Shred-it has launched self-service tool GDPR Manager. The tool is designed to support all HR and recruitment businesses, by providing a clear pathway to achieving GDPR compliance. Developed in collaboration with GDPR legal teams, the software follows guidance from and meets the expectations of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

• Personal profiling assessment tool www.Three78.com has launched. The tool has been adapted so it can assess what a great recruiter looks like, with the firm aiming to have 1,200 recruiter profiles completed by Christmas.

1 October 2018
Marketing, Transport & logistics, Creative/Digital/Media, Engineering, Commercial & office support, Banking/Financial services, IT/Telecoms, HR, Hospitality/Leisure, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 1-5 OCTOBER 2018

• Multi-sector recruiter Berry Recruitment has rebranded its Express Rail Services King’s Cross branch. Ben Moss has been appointed manager of operation based at King’s Cross, which now trades as Berry Recruitment.

Previously, the King’s Cross team just recruited for the rail sector, but now recruits into office and professional, telecoms, IT, and catering and hospitality.

Berry Recruitment Group (BRG) acquired Express Rail Services in 2014 into which it later incorporated its other rail brand, Mainline Resourcing.

• Bond Williams Professional Recruitment has opened an office at the Oxford Science Park in Oxford. The firm has also launched an engineering, science & space division headed up by specialist consultants Peter Knibbs and Laurence Doherty.

• Multi-sector recruiter Essential Recruitment has relocated to larger offices in Mansfield. The agency has moved from Church Street to Acorn Business Park, which will also welcomes new recruit, recruitment consultant Ross Page.

• IT infrastructure staffing specialist Franklin Fitch has opened an office in Austin, Texas. Jordan Guttridge joins Matthew Forshaw in the new location, which will be led by Franklin Fitch director Steven Ewer.

• Finance, HR, marketing and technology recruiter Frazer John Recruitment has moved into larger London offices at WeWork No.1 Poultry, just six months from opening its first London office in Moorgate. The company plans to launch further locations next year.

• Specialist recruiter the Global Accounting Network has moved to refurbished warehouse offices close to London’s Borough Market. The firm also welcomes Elliot Golds as head of permanent recruitment and Alex Sylvester as head of interim recruitment.

• Harness, a digital recruitment service aimed at time-short employers and recruitment agencies, has launched. The service allows hiring companies to view prospective candidates on one easy-to-use platform, removing the need for cold calls, meetings and chasing candidates.

Harness works with recruiters, allowing them to upload their candidate’s details, which will then be accepted or rejected by Harness based on their suitability.

The smart platform combines human knowledge and scientific algorithms to match a candidate’s suitability to any given role within the technology sector, meaning only the most appropriate candidates will appear within Harness’s database. Recruiters can then tailor their search by city, salary, skill set and job title. If interested, perspective employers can finally request an interview with a candidate with the click of a button.

• Global recruiter Phaidon International’s flagship financial brand Selby Jennings has opened an office in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alyssa Daugherty will head up the Charlotte office.

• Tech and engineering staffing specialist Roc Search has expanded into new offices on Hardman Street in Manchester’s Spinningfields.

• IT recruiter Church International has launched Talent LifeCycle (TLC). TLC, led by industry veteran Jan Stevens, is a service that aims to integrate with a firm’s existing HR & talent function to support talent attraction, acquisition and retention.

• International technology-focused recruitment business Templeton & Partners has launched a new office in the heart of Zuidas, the main business and financial district of Amsterdam.

• HR tech start-up ThriveMap is launching a new assessment tool to measure how well a candidate might perform in a certain role, how much they want that position and how well they fit that role.

Designed in collaboration with each customer and customised to their requirement, the tool measures real life scenarios – comparing how candidates perform against the results of employees who thrive in that job. If an employer cannot demonstrate how an attribute presents itself in a real workplace scenario, it won’t be measured.

• Former managing consultants at HR staffing specialist Oakleaf, Jane Middleton and Harriet Lavender, have launched Trapeze HR, a new recruitment firm placing HR professionals in flexible working roles.

The firm said the launch was in response to escalating demand from both candidates and employers. Candidates were looking for more agile and flexible working opportunities, and employers were keen to embrace new ways of working to retain and motivate staff who need to balance work with family and other commitments.

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