Three ways to work with us

Three services. One fee schedule, published.

Permanent search, contract placement, and embedded recruiting. The rate for each one is on this page, in numbers, before you speak to anyone. If the model isn't right for what you're doing, we'll say so and point you at the one that is.

20% permanent fee 18% contract margin £6,500/mo embedded No retainer on permanent

SERVICE 01 · PERMANENT SEARCH

Permanent search. Four names, contingent on nothing but the hire.

Our main line of work — 289 of our 340 placements. You pay when someone starts, not before. There is no retainer, no exclusivity clause and no engagement fee, because we'd rather earn the second brief than lock in the first.

What you get

A two-hour brief with the hiring manager and the team the person will sit in — not a call with a coordinator.
A named longlist of 30–45 people, mapped by Jonah before anyone is approached.
A shortlist of four, each with a written case for the fit and one honest reservation.
Offer and counter-offer management, plus the resignation conversation nobody enjoys.
Check-ins at 30, 90 and 365 days — with you and with them, separately.

How the fee works

20% of the first-year base salary, invoiced on the start date, payable in 30 days. Base salary only — we don't take a percentage of equity, bonus, sign-on or relocation, because charging on a number that may never be paid is how the industry got its reputation. If the band moves during the search, the fee moves with the band, up or down.

Worked example · Senior Backend Engineer

Agreed base salary	£95,000
Equity, bonus, sign-on	not charged
Fee at 20% of base	£19,000
Second hire from the same shortlist	£14,250
Total for two engineers	£33,250

SERVICE 02 · CONTRACT & INTERIM

Contract placement. You see the contractor's rate and ours.

For the six-month platform migration, the maternity cover, the fractional Head of People while you decide whether the role is permanent. 38 contractors placed since 2019, average assignment 5.4 months.

The bit most agencies won't show you

Every contract we place has a split rate written on the timesheet: what the client pays, what the contractor takes, and our margin between them. The contractor sees it. You see it. Our margin is 18% of the client rate, and it does not move because someone negotiated harder — the same assignment costs the same whoever asks.

Worked example · Interim Head of People, 6 months

Client day rate	£650
Contractor day rate	£533
Kindred margin (18%)	£117
Working days in assignment	126
Total margin over the assignment	£14,742

Terms that don't hide anything

Weekly timesheets, weekly invoices. Contractors are paid within 7 days of an approved timesheet, whether or not you've paid us yet.
Two weeks' notice either side after the first month. No minimum-term penalty.
Contract-to-permanent conversion is free after 6 months. Before that, the permanent fee is pro-rated against months served.
Status determination is your call and your liability — we won't tell you a role is outside scope to win the placement.

SERVICE 03 · EMBEDDED RECRUITING

Embedded recruiting. One of us, three days a week, on your side of the table.

When you're hiring six or more people in two quarters, paying 20% a head stops making sense. We put one consultant inside your team on a monthly fee instead — your email address, your stand-ups, your ATS. Thirteen companies have run this with us; four went on to hire their own in-house recruiter, which we count as the point.

What "embedded" actually means here

Three days a week for a fixed three-month term, renewable monthly after that. The consultant is one of the four people on our team — Ada, Marcus, Nadia or Jonah — not a contractor we've subcontracted for the engagement. You get the same person for the whole term, and the day they leave you keep the longlists, the pipeline notes and the interview scorecards, because they were always yours.

Unlimited roles inside the specialism — we don't meter the headcount.
Interview training for your hiring managers, and a scorecard per role that outlives us.
Your ATS, your templates, your employer brand. We don't install ours and we don't rename your pipeline stages.
A written handover at the end, so an in-house hire can pick it up on day one.

Worked example · 7 hires in two quarters

7 permanent hires at 20% (avg £92k base)	£128,800
Embedded, 6 months at £6,500	£39,000
Difference	£89,800
Break-even point	3rd hire

Side by side

Which one you want depends on how many people you're hiring.

Roughly: one or two roles, permanent. A gap to cover, contract. Six-plus in two quarters, embedded.

All fees exclude VAT · figures current for the 2026 financial year
	Permanent	Contract	Embedded
What you pay	20% of base	18% of day rate	£6,500/mo
When you pay	Start date, 30-day terms	Weekly, against timesheets	Monthly, in advance
Paid if nobody starts	No	No	Yes — it's a retained month
Replacement guarantee	12 months	2-week notice either side	n/a — you own the process
Best at	1–5 hires a year	Cover, migrations, fractional leadership	6+ hires in two quarters
Typical time to offer	21 days	9 days	16 days
Who does the work	One of the four of us	One of the four of us	One of the four of us, in your building

Where we go deep

All three services, inside three markets only.

Whichever model you pick, it's these three areas. We turn down about a third of the briefs we're offered because they sit outside them.

Product & Design

PMs, product designers, researchers and design leadership — from first hire to a function of forty. Ada leads it.

128 placed · 11 open

Engineering

Backend, platform, data and engineering management. Marcus reads the code review before he reads the CV.

154 placed · 17 open

People & Ops

Heads of People, talent partners and operations leads. Nadia built the function at two Series B companies herself.

58 placed · 6 open

The honest version

Three briefs we'd tell you to take elsewhere.

We turn down roughly a third of what we're offered. Here's what that third looks like, so you don't waste a call.

A role with an unpublished band

If the salary can't be written down before the first approach, we can't run the search honestly, and the candidates we'd want won't take the call. This is the single most common reason we say no.

Try — a contingency firm

Volume hiring at 20+ a quarter

Our whole method is a named longlist worked by hand. At that volume you need a sourcing function and an ATS workflow, not four people writing shortlist notes.

Try — an in-house TA team

Sales, finance, legal or marketing

We'd be starting from zero on the market map, and you'd be paying for our education. Three markets is the whole point of the business.

Try — a specialist in that function

Not sure which one you need? Say what you're hiring.

Thirty minutes, no pitch. If the answer is "hire someone in-house instead", that's what we'll tell you — it's happened four times and we'd do it again.

See the process and guarantees I'm a candidate, not an employer

Typically replies within one working day.