Insights
Recruitment agencies vs direct employers in UK job adverts
A large share of UK adverts are placed by an agency rather than the employer. For anyone who needs sponsorship, that changes what the advert tells them.
Last updated 11 Sept 2026. First published 11 Sept 2026. Every figure on this page is computed from the Applyfit database and recomputed daily.
In short
26.7% of the 25,244 open adverts whose poster can be identified were placed by a recruitment agency rather than by the employer.
2,119 of those agency-placed adverts come from an organisation that holds its own Skilled Worker licence. That licence covers the agency’s own staff, not the client’s vacancy it is advertising.
Who placed the advert
Across the adverts whose poster can be identified, the split is 6,739 placed by an agency, 6,274 placed by the employer and 10,456 reposted by an aggregator. An aggregator repost may itself have originated with either.
| Source | Open adverts | Agency | Employer | Aggregator | Not classified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adzuna | 10,538 | 2,182 | 2,055 | 6,301 | 0 |
| Reed | 7,756 | 2,788 | 813 | 4,155 | 0 |
| NHS Jobs | 4,047 | 23 | 2,249 | 0 | 0 |
| Greenhouse boards | 2,163 | 1,738 | 425 | 0 | 0 |
| Ashby boards | 495 | 0 | 489 | 0 | 6 |
| Workday boards | 139 | 0 | 139 | 0 | 0 |
| Lever boards | 59 | 8 | 51 | 0 | 0 |
| Teamtailor boards | 31 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 0 |
| SmartRecruiters boards | 19 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 0 |
| Personio boards | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
The agency share, by source
As a share of the classified adverts from each source. Sources with fewer than twenty classified adverts are left out.
Share of classified open adverts placed by an agency, by source
View these figures as a table
| Name | Agency share | Classified adverts |
|---|---|---|
| Greenhouse boards | 80% | 2,163 |
| Reed | 36% | 7,756 |
| Adzuna | 21% | 10,538 |
| Lever boards | 14% | 59 |
| NHS Jobs | 1% | 4,047 |
| Ashby boards | 0% | 489 |
| Workday boards | 0% | 139 |
| Teamtailor boards | 0% | 31 |
The agency share, by sector
For adverts whose advertising organisation is on the sponsor register with a registered activity recorded.
Share of open adverts placed by an agency, by advertiser sector
View these figures as a table
| Name | Agency share | Open adverts |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative and support services | 80% | 2,484 |
| Hospitality | 28% | 29 |
| Professional services | 11% | 593 |
| Information technology | 0% | 1,294 |
| Health | 0% | 564 |
| Manufacturing | 0% | 305 |
| Education | 0% | 188 |
| Social care | 0% | 174 |
| Finance and insurance | 0% | 157 |
| Retail and wholesale | 0% | 108 |
| Architecture and engineering | 0% | 46 |
| Construction | 0% | 42 |
| Real estate | 0% | 38 |
| Other services | 0% | 32 |
| Energy and utilities | 0% | 20 |
Why an agency's licence is not the employer's
A Skilled Worker licence authorises an organisation to sponsor people it employs. Where an agency advertises a role at a client company, the client is the employer, and the agency’s licence does not reach that role. The licence an applicant needs is the client’s, and the advert usually does not name the client.
There is a genuine exception. Agencies that employ workers directly and place them on assignment — locum and supply work, most visibly in health and education — are the employer, and their own licence does apply. Which case an advert falls into cannot be read off the advert.
The practical consequence: an agency advert is not evidence that a role can be sponsored, in either direction. Where the employer is named, the sponsor register answers the licence question; where it is not, the question has to be asked of the agency.
How these figures were produced
Every open, non-duplicate advert on the site is classified as placed by an agency, by the employer, or by an aggregator reposting from elsewhere. The classification comes from the feed’s own metadata about the poster and from the board the advert arrived on.
6 of 25,250 open adverts carry no verdict — NHS Jobs and the employer applicant tracking boards publish nothing about who placed the advert — and are excluded from every share on this page. The denominator is always the 25,244 classified adverts, and it is printed beside each figure.
An agency advertising on its own careers site is not detected, so the agency share is a floor rather than an estimate. The direction of the error is known and it is one way.
Sector is the advertising organisation’s principal registered activity at Companies House, so the sector chart covers only adverts matched to the sponsor register with a SIC code recorded. A recruitment business registers under employment activities, which is why those sectors sit high.
The full list of sources, the refresh cadence and what “estimated” means are on the methodology page.
Cite this
Applyfit, “Recruitment agencies vs direct employers in UK job adverts”, updated 11 Sept 2026. https://applyfit.co.uk/insights/agencies-and-direct-employers
Information from public records, not immigration advice.