Senior appointments in the North West are made in a smaller, better-connected market than London, which makes discretion harder and the research more important. We run full executive search across Manchester and the region on a fixed project fee, with the market map handed to you at the end.
In London, a senior candidate can be approached about four comparable roles in a quarter and nobody notices. In Manchester the relevant population for a given leadership role is often measured in dozens rather than hundreds, and most of them know each other. A clumsy approach does not just lose a candidate; it tells a competitor what you are planning.
That is why our North West search work is built around a documented approach sequence agreed with you in advance: who is contacted, in what order, what is disclosed at each stage, and at what point the client is named. Where an incumbent is still in post, or where the appointment signals a strategic move the business is not ready to announce, that discipline is the whole job.
The second consequence of a smaller market is that the research has to reach wider. A Manchester leadership search frequently needs to consider Leeds, Liverpool, Cheshire, Birmingham and relocating London candidates to build a credible field. We map that wider population as standard rather than presenting a thin local list and calling it the market.
An agreed order of contact and disclosure, designed for a market where most senior people are two introductions apart.
Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston, Leeds and the wider North West, plus relocation candidates where the role justifies it.
Whether a London candidate will genuinely move north, and on what package, established early rather than discovered at offer stage.
A fee agreed before the search, and the long list and market analysis transferred to you when it closes.
Technology, software and data, which now supplies a substantial share of senior North West appointments. Financial and professional services across Spinningfields and the city core, including banking operations, insurance, actuarial and legal services. Media, broadcast and creative across MediaCity and Salford Quays.
Manufacturing, engineering and advanced materials through Trafford Park, Warrington and Cheshire. Chemicals and process industries. Life sciences and healthcare across the Oxford Road corridor. Logistics, retail and consumer head offices. Energy and renewables. Private equity portfolio businesses across the region, where the timetable is usually the binding constraint.
Scoping and written brief, full market research and a long list you actually see, confidential approach and qualification, structured assessment against the brief, shortlist presentation with written analysis, interview management and feedback, referencing including regulatory references where they apply, reward benchmarking to support the offer, offer and resignation management through the notice period, and onboarding contact through the first months in post.
It also includes the handover. At the close of the search you receive the research — the mapped population, the competitor structures and the reward context — as a permanent asset rather than a shortlist that disappears when the invoice is paid.
If your internal team can run the process and the real gap is knowing who exists, a North West talent map or a pipelining project delivers what you need for a fraction of the cost of a search. We will tell you when that is the case. Our fee is not contingent on making a placement, so recommending the cheaper instrument costs us nothing and is frequently the right call.
Yes. We run full executive search across Manchester and the North West, covering Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Warrington, Liverpool, Preston and the Leeds corridor, with relocation candidates included where the role justifies it.
A fixed project fee in pounds agreed before the search starts, based on the complexity and reach of the search rather than a percentage of the successful candidate's package.
Yes, and in a market this well connected it is usually essential. The approach and disclosure sequence is agreed with you in writing before any contact is made.
Where the brief justifies it, yes — including London and other UK cities. Willingness and realistic package to relocate are established early rather than at offer stage.
Yes. Portfolio appointments are a regular part of our North West work, where the investment timetable usually sets the pace of the search.
Tell us the market, the role or the question. Thirty minutes is usually enough to know whether we can help and what the right shape of project would be — and the fee is always fixed and agreed before anything begins.
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