Working within the UK Recruitment Industry it’s important to stay abreast of developments that are going to affect you. It goes without saying that recruiters need to remain informed of the news that affects them within the sectors that they trade in, so there will be countless sector-specific news sources that will provide information such as this. However, it is also important to remain informed of developments that specifically affect the UK recruitment industry – whether it is government legislation, recruitment trends, market sentiment, new HMRC guidelines, or even just monitoring the competition. The following set of links are all useful sources of information for the UK recruitment industry; there are more, but these are the primary ones that I use.

The REC (The Recruitment & Employment Confederation)

The REC bills itself as “the voice of the Recruitment Industry”; officially, it is the representative body for the UK’s £27 billion private recruitment and staffing industry with a membership of more than 8,000 corporate members comprising agencies and businesses from all sectors and 6,000 members of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals (IRP) made up of recruitment consultants and other industry professionals. (Source: http://www.rec.uk.com/). The REC have established a Code of Professional Practice that all members must abide by.

 

APSCo (Association of Professional Staffing Companies)

APSCo promotes itself as being “the professional body that represents the interests of organisations engaged in the acquistion of business professionals” (Source: http://www.apsco.org/). Previously known as ATSCo – the association of technology staffing companies, the organisation expanded its remit to include a broader range of companies engaged in recruitment activities.

 

UK Recruiter – http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/

Originally set up as a link resource primarily, the site has expanded to offer comprehensive directories, frequent newsletters with information on the industry from a recruiter’s perspective, as well as inviting contributions from people within the sector. They bill themselves as “the information resource for recruiters”. More recently, they’ve attempted to start generating income and have moved more towards a charging model though, which might impact on their previous impartiality.

 

Recruitment Today – http://www.recruitmenttoday.net/

Recruitment Today is a relatively recent addition to the online recruitment news arena, but they’ve done a good job so far of providing an overall summary of the industry. They never seem to be first with the release of breaking news though – for that, look to Recruitment International or Recruitment Magazine – but despite that, the site should be part of a recruiter’s portfolio.

 

Recruiter Network – http://www.recruiternetwork.co.uk 

Recruiter Network job board directory, recruitment information for UK recruiters and a recruitment job board for people looking to work in the recruitment industry. It’s a completely unique site in that all company profiles and vacancy advertising on the site are completely free (and always will be).

 

Recruitment International – http://www.recruitment-international.co.uk/

Recruitment International magazine was established in 1993, supported by Dragon’s Den regular James Caan, with the aim of providing the owners, directors and senior managers of the recruitment industry with a quality, professional publication. With a distribution volume of over 7,000 readers – the publication is a welcome addition to more widely published Recruiter Magazine.

 

Recruitment Consultant – http://www.rec-con.co.uk/

Recruitment Consultant magazine has now gone digital, so the glossy hard copies are no longer distributed. It makes the magazine more difficult to read and has probably impacted on overall readership, if not on the circulation figures. Billing itself as “the voice for the UK staffing industry” it’s a case of adding this source to your portfolio, but despite the occasional good article, case or analysis feature – it’s not really going to be a dominant source of new information.

 

Recruiter Magazine – http://www.recruiter.co.uk/

Recruiter Magazine can probably be considered as the market leader in the UK recruitment industry. Published on a fortnightly basis, the well written magazine includes industry news, advice, analysis, recruitment vacancies and a range of special features. They have quoted a circultation of over 29,000 recruitment professionals.

 

Staffing Industry Analysts – http://www.staffingindustry.com

Although a US based organisation, Staffing Industry Analysts provide some excellent, in-depth reports that make use of the “company’s award-winning proprietary research, data, support tools, publications and executive conferences”. It’s more of an executive level overview of the recruitment industry with an overall global focus.

 

UK Activity Report – http://www.ukactivityreport.co.uk/

It’s a subscription model for this site, but one that provides weekly updates business news throughout the UK, broken down into sectors and including useful links to the organisation’s web sites. It’s handy to have as it can keep you abreast of a broad range of sectors and let you know of any changes that are happening that could either affect you, or present you with opportunities for new business.