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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.

10 September 2018
Retail, Transport & logistics, Commercial & office support, Industrial/Manufacturing, IT/Telecoms, HR, Hospitality/Leisure, Graduates/Apprentices/School leavers, Healthcare/Medical, Apprentices/Grads/School leavers

NEW TO THE MARKET: 10-14 SEPTEMBER 2018

• Students joining and returning to Boston College this year will take part in a pioneering course with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to raise their awareness of modern slavery and labour exploitation.

Since a launch event in June, GLAA has delivered training to over 200 staff at the college who are now equipped with the knowledge and skills to deliver tutorials on the subject. All full-time students regardless of their course, will receive a tutorial at some point in the year on workers’ rights and spotting the signs of modern slavery.

• E1EW has opened a new office in Peterborough, headed up by consultant Marcin Dombek. The telco recruiter was due to open in Corby but has opted for Peterborough instead.

• Newcastle-based entrepreneur Sophie Milliken, managing director of Smart Resourcing Solutions, has launched new graduate recruitment business GetaGraduateJob.com.

The firm specialises in working with employers, students and universities on specialist solutions supporting graduate and apprenticeship recruitment and employability focusing on early year admissions. The business has also landed its first corporate sponsor in retailer M&S.

• Graduate staffing specialist Graduate Fasttrack has opened a Manchester office located in the WeWork building in Spinningfields, led by new recruit and regional director for Manchester, Dale Wetter.

• Workforce management platform for the US and Canada PGC has opened an office in San Francisco. Whether you’re a local or international agency, company or contractor, PGC specialises in mitigating the liability and employer risk associated with employing a workforce in North America for recruiters, contractors and clients alike.

• The Recruit Venture Group has recently successfully launched three new joint venture recruitment companies. The first was commercial, driving and industrial recruiter Wilson Recruitment, which opened its doors on Monday 13 August. The second is logistics, commercial, hospitality and manufacturing recruiter SaVi Recruitment, which launched on Monday 3 September. The third is Hampshire-based healthcare staffing specialist Recruit2Care, which launched yesterday (10 September).

3 September 2018
Public sector, Creative/Digital/Media, Education, Banking/Financial services, Executive search, HR, Accounting/Finance

NEW TO THE MARKET: 3-7 SEPTEMBER 2018

• Workplace adviser Acas has launched new advice for recruiters about job references. The advice covers areas such as the definition of an employee reference, whether they have to be provided, what they can include, when they are needed, how they relate to job offers, whether you can give a bad reference, as well as how best to resolve problems with references.

• Executive search firm Amrop has launched a new office in Dublin, led by managing partner David Kelly. Amrop Ireland will focus on providing executive search and related leadership services to clients across a range of sectors, with particular focus on financial services, consumer & retail, and industrial.

• Education staffing specialist Connex Education has opened an office in Northampton. Connex has offices in Nottingham, London, Birmingham and Liverpool among others.

• The Measuring Job Quality Working Group, jointly led by the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) and the Carnegie UK Trust, has launched a report aiming to update the way government monitors the quality of work on offer across the UK.

The ‘Measuring Good Work’ report sets out a clear framework for measuring job quality in the UK by identifying a series of new questions around work-life balance, progression, purpose and involvement, which should be added to the annual official Labour Force Survey.

The working group, formed in response to the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices, seeks to address Taylor’s recommendation that job quality is measured across the country in a bid to deliver work that is fair and decent for workers around the UK.

• The recruitment services of regional publisher Midland News Association (MNA), publisher of regional newspaper the Express & Star, has merged into one brand under the name Star Employment Services.

Previously, MNA operated two recruitment brands – MNA Recruitment and Star Employment Services. MNA Recruitment operated a job board with long-term and short-term vacancies, while Star Employment offered a bespoke recruitment agency service.

Following the merger, the MNA Recruitment brand will no longer exist, with everything now falling under Star Employment Services.

• International executive search firm Pedersen & Partners has opened an office in Kualar Lumpur, headed up by Malaysia country manager Peter Lisney.

28 August 2018
Engineering, Construction & property, IT/Telecoms, HR, Hospitality/Leisure, Apprentices/Grads/School leavers

NEW TO THE MARKET: 28-31 AUGUST 2018

• Technical engineering staffing specialist Advance TRS has opened an office on the South Coast in Port Solent. The office is headed up by water & infrastructure director Rob Kelly. The firm also welcomes Neil Wilkie as training and development director.

• Bath-based software company Cognisess has launched career matching app Yondur. The app assesses user’s values, interests and core attributes through a series of activities and games.

Users create their Yondur Profile allowing them to send to employers and recruiters providing evidence about who they are and where they best fit – even if they have little or no job experience.

• French brasserie and bistro specialist Côte Restaurants has teamed up with people analytics firm ThriveMap to launch a tool that matches candidates’ preferred working styles to those of their best employees.

The tool sees candidates answer a seven-minute questionnaire as part of the recruitment process. Their responses are then compared to a model of Côte’s best performing employees to identify which candidates are likely to be the best fit for the organisation.

This information is then passed on to recruiting managers to be used alongside traditional interviews. This helps highlight not only who has the right skills for the job, but also who is likely to fit in best at the company.

• Derby-based multi-sector recruiter EMBS has moved to a group structure incorporating three subsidiaries: EMBS Engineering, EMBS IT and EMBS Property. The move also sees James Hall appointed director within EMBS Engineering.

• London-based digital agency Mbryonic is launching DELIVR IT, a virtual reality (VR) recruitment tool. Students and jobseekers can experience the different jobs and employment opportunities in the logistics sector in VR.

The project was commissioned by Essex County Skills and Employment Board to boost awareness and increase job applicants within the sector. The app will be launched on the Oculus Store for the Oculus Go headset and be rolled out into schools and job centres around Essex.

• Employment career website VERCIDA has partnered with Irish data science firm Opening.io to launch a job matching service using artificial intelligence (AI).

The partnership sees VERCIDA integrate Opening.io’s AI technology into its career website using intuitive searching to help candidates find work that suits their skills and profile. 

21 August 2018
IT/Telecoms, Hospitality/Leisure

NEW TO THE MARKET: 20-24 AUGUST 2018

• An alliance of Estonian organisations has launched a recruitment campaign entitled Career Hunt, in partnership with a number of IT companies.

The campaign aims to find technology specialists from the UK and encourage them to apply for senior positions at tech industry firms, such as Taxify, Twilio, Microsoft, Skype and Swedbank.

The top 20 selected candidates will be treated to a five-day trip to Estonia (flights and accommodation paid for), during which they will meet with IT firms, visit the NATO Cyber Defence Centre and attend robotics festival Robotex. They will also have an opportunity to interview for jobs.

International job search portal Jobbatical will help employers find suitable candidates and conduct preliminary interviews. The campaign is part of the Work in Estonia programme.

The programme is a part of Enterprise Estonia – a national foundation to support entrepreneurship. Its budget comes from Estonia’s ICT development programme, as well as from government funding.

Along with the 12 participating IT companies, partner organisations are Work Estonia, Enterprise Estonia, Visit Estonia, Visit Tallinn, Startup Estonia, Lift99, robotex and Jobbatical.

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