UK Talent Sourcing
The right UK candidates, found faster and at far lower cost. A direct, cost-effective alternative to British recruitment agencies — we identify, approach and qualify candidates for your specific vacancies and hand you a vetted shortlist, with no placement fee and no percentage of salary.
The right candidates, found faster and at far lower cost
Our Talent Sourcing service is a direct, cost-effective alternative to traditional recruitment agencies.
We identify, approach and qualify candidates for your specific vacancies — handing you a vetted shortlist without the placement-fee overhead.
Because we charge by project, not commission, we’re never incentivised to push a candidate through. The result is a shortlist you can trust.
Every project includes:
- Active candidate identification across all channels and databases
- First-contact outreach handled by our research team
- Qualified shortlist delivered with full candidate profiles
- Typically 40–60% lower cost than agency placement
- Market insights and feedback included as standard
Sample Pages
A look at what we hand over — dummy data shown. Use the arrows on either side, swipe, or the arrow keys to browse.
The benefits of talent sourcing
Faster to shortlist
Our research team works your vacancy directly — identifying, approaching and qualifying candidates in parallel — so a vetted shortlist reaches you in a fraction of the usual time.
Far lower cost
Because we charge a project fee rather than a percentage of salary, talent sourcing typically comes in 40–60% below agency placement — with no hidden fees and the full candidate detail handed to you.
A shortlist you can trust
We’re never incentivised to push a candidate through, so every profile is included on merit. You get an honest, qualified shortlist — and the market feedback behind it.
Where talent sourcing helps
Talent sourcing is a bespoke, project-based service. Here are a few of the ways businesses use it:
A better-value alternative to agencies
If your agency spend is climbing but the results aren’t, sourcing gives you the same outcome — qualified candidates for a live role — for a project fee, not a percentage of salary.
You keep the full candidate detail, and there are no placement fees inflating the cost of a hire — typically 40–60% less than an agency.
Talk to us about a live role →
Live and multi-role hiring
Building a team, opening a new function, or filling several similar roles at once?
We source across all of them in parallel, giving you a steady flow of qualified, interested candidates — without stretching your internal talent team.
Reaching passive candidates
The best people are rarely on the job market. We identify and approach passive candidates directly across every channel and database.
That reaches people a job advert never will — and we qualify them against your brief before they ever reach your shortlist.
Our process
Every project is shaped around your vacancy, but in general this is how we’d work with you on a sourcing project:
Agree the brief and target profile
Identify candidates across all channels
Approach and qualify against your criteria
Deliver a vetted shortlist with profiles
Feedback, market insight and next steps
Why source talent with Audentia?
Our clients trust us to deliver qualified candidates without the cost and bias of the agency model. We take time to understand your vacancy and your business, then bring you an honest, evidence-based shortlist — with the market insight behind it.
No placement fees
A project fee, never commission — typically 40–60% below agency placement, with the full candidate detail yours to keep.
Unbiased shortlists
We’re not paid to push anyone through, so every candidate is included on merit — a shortlist you can genuinely trust.
Global reach
We source for roles across Europe, North & South America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.
Insight included
Market intelligence and candidate feedback come as standard, so you learn from every project — not just the hire.
“We were haemorrhaging budget on agency fees for roles our team simply didn’t have time to source. Audentia stepped in, sourced across every channel and handed us a shortlist of genuinely qualified people — at a fraction of the cost, and with none of the ‘just get them through’ pressure. The market feedback they included was a real bonus.”
Head of Talent Acquisition — High-growth SaaS client
Insights
Talent sourcing case studies
Replacing agency spend on a live sales team
Our client was spending heavily with agencies to build out a sales team. We sourced the same roles directly and delivered qualified shortlists for roughly half the cost.
Learn more →
Sourcing a multi-role engineering build-out
A scaling business needed several similar engineering hires at once. We sourced across all of them in parallel, keeping a steady flow of qualified candidates to the team.
Learn more →
Reaching passive finance leaders
The candidates our client wanted weren’t looking. We approached them directly, qualified their interest, and turned a “no-one available” brief into a real shortlist.
Learn more →Direct UK sourcing, without the 20–30% agency fee
A typical British contingency agency charges between 15% and 25% of first-year salary, and a retained search 25% to 33%. On a £70,000 hire that is £10,500 to £17,500 for work that is, in substance, research and outreach. We do the same identification, approach and qualification on a fixed project fee, and you keep every candidate record whether or not you hire.
Sourcing runs against your live UK vacancies: we define the target population with your hiring manager, research it across the whole British market rather than the part of it that happens to be on a job board, approach candidates in your name or ours, qualify them on scope, location, hybrid expectation, salary in pounds and notice, and hand over a vetted shortlist with written market feedback.
Whole-of-market, not job-board-first
Most strong British candidates are not applying to anything. We research the market that exists, including people who have never had a CV in circulation.
Qualified against UK realities
Right to Work status, location and commute, hybrid expectation, notice, salary expectation in pounds and genuine motivation — established before the profile reaches you.
Your data, permanently
Every profile, note and contact detail is yours at the end of the project. Re-approach the same people next year at no cost; we do not gate your own market back to you.
Where we work across the UK
- London
- Manchester
- Birmingham
- Leeds
- Bristol
- Edinburgh
- Glasgow
- Cardiff
- Belfast
- Reading & Thames Valley
- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
- Nottingham
- Milton Keynes
- Aberdeen
- Liverpool
- Southampton
- Coventry
UK questions we are asked most
How much cheaper is this than a UK recruitment agency?
Clients typically see a 40–60% reduction against contingency and retained agency fees, because you pay for research hours rather than a percentage of salary. The saving grows with the salary: the fee for sourcing a £120,000 role is not double the fee for a £60,000 one.
Do you approach candidates in our name or yours?
Either. Some UK clients want the employer brand front and centre; others want a confidential approach, particularly when sourcing directly from a named competitor. We agree the script and the disclosure position before outreach starts.
What is in a UK sourcing shortlist?
A written profile per candidate covering current employer and scope, location and working pattern, relevant experience against the brief, salary expectation in pounds, notice period, Right to Work position and a summary of the conversation — plus feedback on what the market told us about the role itself.
Do you cover the whole of the UK?
Yes, and Ireland and mainland Europe where a brief needs it. Sourcing is run from our London desk on UK hours, with research capacity across other time zones for volume briefs.
A London desk on UK hours, and research running across six time zones so your search never sleeps
Let's build your shortlist.
A thirty-minute conversation is usually enough to know whether we can help — and what the right shape of sourcing project would be.