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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.

13 December 2017
Construction & property

Start-up of the Month: Source

According to Hartley, the agency has been launched with the mission of effecting “dramatic” change in the diversity profile at all levels and disciplines within the built environment sector. 

“We collaborate with organisations dedicated to removing barriers to employment for traditionally excluded groups including women, BAME, ex-offenders and ex-service personnel. We provide recruitment services and also directly employ people for placement into projects and organisations. This is across a broad range of roles, skills and levels of experience. 

“Our motivation is to tackle unethical practices and unfair employment conditions. We partner with clients, contractors, labour providers and social enterprises to provide pathways to employment, and training for diverse and local people. We also offer consultancy and advisory services for clients looking for social sustainability requirements, and to contractors and suppliers looking to meet those requirements and perform well.”

Looking ahead, Hartley says the agency is seeking to extend its business model to other sectors including hospitality, care and transport. “We see huge potential for developing a recruitment and employment mechanism that focuses specifically on social sustainability and ethics as this is a new frontier of working.”

13 December 2017

New fund hits target for Parsons

James Parsons, CEO and founder of global workforce solutions provider Arrows Group Global, is launching a capital investment fund for the recruitment sector, which he told Recruiter “he would have bitten your hand off for” had it been around when he started in recruitment.

Parsons said the aim of the new fund, Arrows Group Ventures – to be launched formally in January – is to support “the next generation of innovative businesses in our sector”. 

Tapping into the growing trend for recruitment to be automated, Parsons said the fund focused on “the sweet spot of the tech enablement space within HR and staffing”. 

He said the fund will look to invest in two types of businesses: those providing technology to the recruitment market, such as AI-based talent management platforms providers, and niche recruitment businesses “that are leveraging technology”. 

The fund into which Parsons is putting £500k of his money will provide seed capital, advice and infrastructure support. Parsons said he will be looking for a minority stake in the businesses in which the fund invests, with a view to growing the business and exiting “at some stage”. He said it was likely he would take up an advisory board role in each of the companies. Parsons said two or three other people are interested in investing alongside him. 

“The fund will lend itself to start-ups and incubator type businesses,” said Parsons. “I want to attract the sharpest young recruiters who have something worth investing in.”

Parsons co-founded Arrows Group with Adrian Treacy in 2003, going on to co-found ICG Medical with Treacy as well in 2006. Parsons exited from ICG Medical in May 2017. 

13 December 2017

Monroe office opening brings new targets in sight

The opening of a new office in Fort Mill, South Carolina in the US will position Staffing 360 Solutions subsidiary Monroe Staffing Solutions within reach of more than 300 target clients in retail and manufacturing, according to Monroe president and CEO Matt Briand.

Speaking exclusively to Recruiter, Briand said that the newly-launched office in one of South Carolina’s fastest growing cities will also provide access to a large candidate pool. 

Monroe previously was represented in the Southern US with offices in Concord, Salisbury and Winston-Salem, all in North Carolina, north of Charlotte. The Fort Mill office sets the stage to expand Monroe and Staffing 360’s Southern presence, down the Interstate 85 corridor through South Carolina toward Atlanta, Georgia, where Staffing 360 recently acquired another recruitment business. 

Other potential South Carolina locations for Monroe include Greenville, home to Michelin’s North American headquarters and next-door city to a full BMW production facility, and state capital Columbia. Briand says Greenville, for example, would provide significant opportunities in the professional services market.  

“We’re really excited,” Briand said. Downtown Atlanta is a current location for Monroe sister company, firstPRO Georgia. Staffing 360 acquired the accounting, finance and IT specialist in September, as part of its global buy-and-build strategy.

Monroe also has offices in the US states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. 
Staffing 360 executive chairman Brendan Flood told Recruiter there also could be “quite a tie-up” between its UK acquired recruitment business, engineering recruiter CBSbutler, and its US businesses down the line. 

In the UK, Staffing 360 also owns IT recruiter JM Group and finance & accountancy and law recruiter Longbridge 360. 

5 December 2017
Charity & not-for-profit, IT/Telecoms

NEW TO THE MARKET: 4-8 DECEMBER 2017

• Networking, systems infrastructure and security recruiter Franklin Fitch has launched a new UK contract team. The team is led by contract practice manager Simon Nicholls and supported by new graduate recruitment consultants Chris Mckenzie and Mahsam Khan.

• Nottingham social enterprise Infused Learning has launched a pilot scheme, funded by the National Lottery, offering free courses to help unemployed local residents access qualifications to get them back into work. The organisation is offering free qualifications for Bulwell residents.

Infused Learning co-founder Natalie Sharpe explains: “In Bulwell [North-West of Nottingham], 37.4% of residents have no formal qualifications – this is against a backdrop of 22% across England. In one of the area’s main academies, 107 out of 166 learners at the end of key stage four were deemed disadvantaged.”

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