Knowing which temp agency to use is a tricky one. There are plenty to choose from, and not enough time – especially when you’re in a hurry to find someone quickly. So here’s a quick breakdown of the top 30 temp agencies in London, to help you choose!
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1 – Adecco
One of the giants of the recruitment industry worldwide, Adecco are a recruiting firm with a presence in over 60 countries. They place candidates in permanent, temp and contract roles in every business category you can think of. Adecco also places warehouse workers for Amazon. While all available positions are advertised online, they also have a physical presence on many London high streets. Adecco’s size means they are as adept at finding 5 temps as they are 5000.
Services: warehouse, Amazon, administrators
Key features: scale, physical branches
Reviews: Facebook, Trustpilot, Yelp
2 – Angela Mortimer
Since its founding in 1976, Angela Mortimer has grown to become one of London’s foremost admin recruitment companies. From modest beginnings in London, they now have offices across the UK, Europe and the world. Angela Mortimer prides itself on its high success rate when placing clients. 1 in 2 of their placements is considered successful. Angela Mortimer takes time to consider what the candidate wants career-wise, then matches them with the right client. They also produce the Blue Book, a staple of the London recruitment industry.
Services: Executive Assistant, PA, secretarial, administration, reception
Key features: overseas presence, high success rate
3 – Attic Recruitment
Attic Recruitment is a boutique recruitment agency working primarily in the PA and secretarial categories. They work on temp and permanent roles across the whole of London. Its strength is character-matching, ensuring the candidates they place are ideal fits with the companies they join. Attic was founded by Sarah Culshaw and Kirsty Miall, who still run the business on a day-to-day basis, taking time to understand the businesses they work with.
Services: secretarial, PA, HR
Key features: temp and permanent
4 – Blue Arrow
Blue Arrow is one of the UK’s largest recruitment companies. It employs more than 600 consultants across more than 100 locations in the UK. Blue Arrow has 65 high street branches and places more than 60,000 candidates every year. Blue Arrow specialises in placing candidates over a range of industries, including admin, call centre, logistics, hospitality and manufacturing. It was placed in the Sunday Times’ Top 100 Best Companies To Work For.
Services: admin, secretarial, call centre, logistics, hospitality, catering, manufacturing, public sector.
Key features: Scale, physical presence
Reviews: TrustPilot, ThomsonLocal
5 – Durham Lane
Based in Newcastle, but serving London and the entire UK, Durham Lane styles itself as a ‘sales transformation specialist’ with recruitment just a part of what they do. Sales is their speciality, and they aim to find the right sales professionals to help their clients grow quickly. Because they have a sales training arm to their company, Durham Lane can easily see which candidates have the right sales skills to be a success. Durham Lane was founded in 2011 by Lee Durham and Richard Lane.
Services: sales
Key features: training, graduates, sales speciality
Reviews: Facebook
6 – E4S
E4S, standing for Employment 4 Students was founded in 2000. Its speciality is finding holiday work for students. Students need money, and companies need temporary staff. Matching the two up is an ideal solution. E4S helps find temp and part-time work for students, then graduate work once they have left education. They place candidates across all sectors, including hospitality, tourism and technology.
Services: hospitality, tourism, delivery
Key features: students, part-time, temps
Reviews: Facebook
7 – Eclipse Recruitment
Eclipse Recruitment is a boutique agency specialising in the property and HR sectors, as well as Central Government departments. As well as experienced candidates, Eclipse Recruitment are adept at placing graduates, gap year students and tourists on working visas into roles. Eclipse prides itself on building strong relationships with clients, many of whom have been with them for a number of years.
Services: HR, property, Central Government
Key features: Small team of experts
Reviews: Facebook
8 – Front Recruitment
Front Recruitment is an abbreviation of Front of House. That’s because this agency specialises in placing receptionists. Nothing else. They say they are the receptionist recruitment agency for London. Their clients are banks, law firms, hedge funds, private clinics and other prestigious companies. Their candidates tend to be 5-star hotel receptionists, ex-first-class cabin crew, or previously employed receptionists.
Services: Receptionists
Key features: Exclusive sector expertise
Reviews: Facebook
9 – Grafter
Grafter is an easy-to-navigate website and app helping companies find and hire temporary workers. Grafter fills roles in a number of categories, often seasonal or project-specific work. Workers can create profiles on the platform, while companies can post jobs and sift through the profiles they receive. Grafter manages the payment process. Grafter has an app available on iOS and Android, so candidates and companies can find each other on the go.
Services: construction, farming, events, industry, logistics
Key features: managing temps via app
Reviews: Facebook, reviews.co.uk, iTunes
10 – Hays
Another big international name in recruitment, Hays employs over 6200 people in 33 countries. Hays works across a variety of sectors, but specialises in finance, construction, IT, education and healthcare. They also maintain a big presence in public services and executive search. Hays prides itself on strong customer service, which is the key to being a market leader. Their consultants are experts in the industries they serve. Hays has been trading since the 1860s.
Services: accountancy, finance, construction, IT, education, healthcare, public sector
Key features: scale, sector expertise
Reviews: TrustPilot, graduatejobs.com
11 – Hydrogen Group
For over 20 years, Hydrogen Group has been companies grow and candidates fulfil their potential. Hydrogen is a global recruitment giant, placing more than 4000 candidates per year across 67 countries. They deal with permanent and contract recruitment. Specialist sectors include legal, life sciences, finance, energy, tech and consulting. They are regularly featured in the Sunday Times’ Top 100 Companies to Work For list.
Services: legal, life sciences, finance, energy, tech, consulting, business transformation
Key features: scale, forward thinking
Reviews: Facebook
12 – Love Success
Love Success is a specialist PA, Executive Assistant and office support recruitment agency, based in London. They work on permanent as well as temporary roles, and specialise in finding ‘office superheroes’. The majority of their clients come from the HR, finance and marketing industries. Love Success has invested in cloud-based technology to respond more quickly to their clients’ requests and recruit the best staff from across the UK. Finally, Love Success won the 2017 Best Female-Owned Recruitment Agency Award.
Services: PA, Executive Assistant, office support
Features: Permanent and temps, technology
13 – Manpower
Manpower is another of UK recruitment’s giants. Worldwide, they connect more than 600,000 people with work every day, assisting more than 400,000 clients. They are the global recruitment leader in contingent and permanent workforce solutions. In the UK, Manpower runs more than 20 physical offices and work across every category. Companies who use Manpower include the Royal Mail, BMW and Ikea.
Services: logistics, retail, technology
Features: scale, physical presence
Reviews: Yelp
14 – Matchstick Recruitment
Matchstick Recruitment specialising in recruiting PA, secretaries and office support staff for clients in London. They place candidates for temporary, contract and permanent roles, and work across all industry sectors. Matchstick is an industry expert and specialises in retaining candidates on their books that don’t use any other agencies. They are also experts at taking care of payroll for their temporary staff, taking everything out of their client’s hands.
Services: PA, secretarial, Office support
Features: temp, permanent, payroll
Reviews: Secsinthecity
15 – Morgan Hunt
Morgan Hunt is a company specialising in public sector recruitment, although they are not exclusive to the public sector. Their original mission was placing temporary workers into Local Authority Housing Associations, but have expanded into filling roles for NHS, education and charities. Current clients include Imperial College Health Partners and Age UK. They work on temp, contract and permanent positions.
Services: public sector, charities
Features: public sector specialists
16 – Morgan Spencer
Morgan Spencer has been helping companies recruit in London since 2001. They recruit across a variety of industries, but the majority of roles available are in the PA/Executive Assistant categories. They place candidates in permanent and temp roles. Morgan Spencer takes a consultative approach with their clients, helping them develop cost-saving initiatives, implement new tech and carry out research. They always aim to work quickly for their clients.
Services: PA, executive assistant
Features: Research, consultancy
17 – Office Angels
Office Angels is one of the UK’s biggest recruitment brands, operating primarily in the secretarial sector. They place candidates across a variety of industries, including HR, marketing, finance and IT. Last year, they placed 4500 candidates into permanent positions. Office Angels is currently adapting to the changing marketplace by focusing on placing millennials into work. They are ranked 23rd on Great Places To Work’s 2017 ‘Best Medium Workplaces List.’
Services: secretarial, PA, finance
Features: scale, millennials
Reviews: Yelp, Facebook, TrustPilot
18 – Prospectus
Prospectus is a specialist recruitment company working in the non-profit sector. They place candidates at all levels, from administrator to Chief Executive. They work on permanent and temporary roles. Prospectus also provides a recruitment advertising design service, taking that tricky task out of their clients’ hands. Current clients include Marie Curie Cancer Care, UNICEF and the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Services: charity, non-profit, third sector
Features: specialism, design
Reviews: Google Reviews, Glassdoor
19 – Randstad
Randstad specialises in finding temporary and permanent staff in a wide range of industries, including finance, social care, IT and construction. They run more than 70 physical branches and are the 2nd largest recruitment firm in the UK. They have recently been successful in supplying teachers and teaching assistants to London schools. On Randstad’s website, you can submit your CV and apply for positions, which makes it handy for candidates and employers alike.
Services: education, finance, IT
Features: scale, physical presence, submit your CV
Reviews: Facebook
20 – RedWigWam
RedWigWam is one of London’s go-to agencies for temporary workers. They have more than 60,000 workers on their books ready to go at any time. They fill 98% of positions in under 4 hours. Many large companies use RedWigWam for their flexible staffing needs, including Tesco, Subway and Carlsberg. RedWigWam takes care of all the admin and payroll for the placement. Workers and hirers can join online.
Services: retail, events, logistics
Features: temp only, flexibility, admin
Reviews: TrustPilot, Feefo, Facebook
21 – Reed
Reed is the biggest family-run recruitment business in the world. It maintains the UK’s largest candidate database, with expertise in 20 specialist sectors. Reed also offers the longest guarantees in the recruitment market. Reed maintains 100 offices across the UK, fixtures on many High Streets. Temping is their speciality, although they place candidates in permanent positions too. They work with employers such as Sainsbury’s, GWR and Santander. Their associated website reed.co.uk is the UK’s largest job website, with more than 7 million jobseekers using it every month. A staggering 160,000 applications take place every day on the site. The platform allows candidates to upload CVs and make applications for hirers to browse. They also publish great content on career advice.
Services: retail, hospitality, finance
Features: scale, physical presence, huge website
Reviews: TrustPilot, Yelp
22 – Robert Half
Robert Half is a recruitment company operating 5 divisions in the UK: Finance and accounting, financial services, technology, office team and executive search. They place candidates in temporary and permanent roles. Their consultants are often ex-finance workers themselves, so they know what their clients are looking for in a hire. Clients can submit their job vacancies online, or speak to a consultant. Robert Half always considers the culture of their clients’ office as they evaluate which candidates will be a good fit.
Services: finance, tech, office support
Features: online facility, global scale
Reviews: Google
23 – Shine Recruitment
Shine Recruitment is a London temp and permanent recruitment agency specialising in the dental industry. If you’re a Dental Practice Manager you can use Shine Recruitment to find dentists and dental nurses on a temp basis. After 15 years of trading, Shine Recruitment is extremely well-connected in the dental industry and can find staff at short-notice. Many of their consultants have experience of working in the dental industry.
Services: dentists, dental nurses
Features: well-connected, flexible
Reviews: Facebook
24 – Staff Direct
Staff Direct is a London recruitment agency that concentrates almost exclusively on placing temporary staff. Staff Direct places staff across a variety of categories, including catering, admin and care. They offer a guarantee of total satisfaction for their clients as well as the candidates they place.
Services: catering, administration, care, logistics
Features: temping focus, guarantee
Reviews: Facebook
25 – Staff Heroes
Staff Heroes is an online platform helping companies find the best temporary staff in London. Through their website or mobile app, companies create a profile and post jobs. Candidates create profiles detailing their experience and references. The platform matches them up, also taking care of all the administration including payroll. Staff Heroes serves the hotel sector extremely well, placing temp workers for Marriott, Hilton, Crowne Plaza and more. On their site, you can download a free whitepaper on technology trends and how the gig economy is revolutionising short-term staffing.
Services: Hospitality, events
Features: Mobile app, platform, admin, payroll
Reviews: reviews.co.uk
26 – Tate
Tate is a nationwide recruitment company with physical branches in the City and the West End of London. They specialise in placing candidates in office admin roles, including HR, marketing, PA, Executive Assistant and reception. Tate works on permanent, temp and contract roles. One of the unique things Tate works on is office-based apprenticeships with employers they work with. If you’re looking to take on an apprentice, possibly to plug your digital skills gap, Tate could be a good place to start.
Services: admin, PA, HR
Features: apprenticeships, scale
Reviews: Indeed
27 – Tempo
Tempo is an online recruitment platform matching companies and candidates quickly and easily. Candidates create profiles on the platform, while companies can post jobs in minutes. The difference is that candidates must create video profiles, which are more fun for companies to sift through compared to CVs. The platform matches the hirer and the candidate up and takes care of all the admin. Companies hiring on Tempo include Uber, New Look and Hello Fresh.
Services: drivers, retail, care
Features: online platform, video profiles
Reviews: Facebook
28 – TempTribe
TempTribe is a London recruitment company specialising in the hospitality sector. For companies looking for waiting staff, bar staff, baristas, kitchen porters and more, TempTribe is equipped to help. They have more than 1500 quality temp workers on their books. There is also an online platform where hirers can create a pool of available temps at the touch of a button. That way they can easily request the same workers that have been successful for them in the past.
Services: hospitality, events, catering
Features: specialist knowledge, online platform
Reviews: Facebook
29 – Tiger Recruitment
Tiger Recruitment is a London-based agency specialising in support staff. Companies go to Tiger for PAs, Executive Assistants, administrators and more. They work on permanent and temp roles. Their temps are often available for same-day bookings, and hirers can use Tiger’s services through their mobile app. One of the unique features of Tiger Recruitment is that they run a specialist division for virtual assistants.
Services: admin, virtual assistants
Features: mobile app, same-day bookings
30 – Workers Direct
Workers Direct is a specialist temp and short-term staffing agency, based in London. Their areas of speciality are catering and warehouse staffing. Interested candidates can upload their CVs online making it easier for Workers Direct’s consultants to place them. Workers Direct also manage the payroll and other admin tasks for all their placements.
Services: warehouse, catering
Features: specialist areas, online CVs
