Sell to UK recruitment agencies
Independent recruiters and staffing firms, one of the most heavily London-weighted trades on the public record.
There are 29,676 of them on the Companies House register as of August 2026, filing SIC code 78109. This page is about reaching them, not about being one.
What people sell to recruitment agencies
If you are one of these, this market is a list rather than a guess. Every company below is on the public record with its registered office, incorporation date, officers and filing history.
- Applicant tracking systems and CRM for recruiters
- Job boards and candidate sourcing tools
- Invoice finance and back-office payroll bureaux
- Professional indemnity and employment practices cover
- Contractor payroll and umbrella services
- Reference, right-to-work and screening providers
What SIC 78109 actually tells you
Roughly a fifth of the companies carrying this code file it behind another, which usually means a consultancy that also places people, or a specialist firm hedging its description. If you want agencies proper, filter on first position. If you want everyone who recruits as part of what they do, match any position and expect a broader list.
In numbers: 24,143 companies put 78109 first and 5,533 carry it in one of their other three SIC slots, so 81 per cent of the population leads with it. Together they are 0.6 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register.
Recruitment and employment agencies by post town
Measured on the August 2026 register, these are the registered-office post towns with the most recruitment agencies. London holds 26 per cent of the national population on its own. A registered office is where the paperwork sits rather than where the work happens, so treat this as where to start looking, not as a service area.
- London7,603
- Birmingham736
- Manchester639
- Leeds454
- Bristol415
Timing
New agencies are almost always founded by someone leaving an established one, and they buy their whole stack in the first two months: ATS, job board credits, insurance and a payroll route. After that it is a switching sale, which is a much harder one.
A worked filter for this market: SIC 78109, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days. That turns 29,676 companies into a list you can write to in an afternoon. Add the poor-website filter if what you sell is a web presence, or a recent change of officer if you sell to whoever just took the job.
The rest of division 78
A trade rarely sits in exactly one code. Recruitment and employment agencies is in division 78, employment activities, and the codes below are its nearest neighbours on the public record: another 37,788 companies describing themselves in adjacent terms. If your product suits the wider trade rather than this one code, pull two or three of them together.
You only pay for leads that arrive complete.
You carry the bounce rate and the compliance risk for data somebody else assembled and will not explain
Leads that arrive verified with the filing behind each field, so the ICO question has a written answer
Every recruitment agencie you pull arrives with its Companies House record, the director’s name, a verified website and a verified email. The ones we cannot complete are not charged for.
What if a company has no website?
Trades with a lot of very small companies tend to have patchy web presence, and a list that charges you per row will happily sell you the rows it could not finish. Here you are charged for a complete lead or not at all, which means the size of the market above is the ceiling, not the invoice.
Is emailing these companies legal?
This is public-record data about businesses, and reaching a company at a published business address is normal B2B contact. The lawful basis is legitimate interest, every message carries an opt-out, and anyone who asks to be removed is suppressed across the whole system rather than on one list. If a company asks us directly, we take its record out within twenty-four hours. None of that is optional or an upgrade.
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The first sixty days
Twenty-nine thousand recruitment agencies in the UK, and a fifth of them file it as a second trade.
Common questions
How many recruitment agencies are there in the UK?
29,676 active UK companies file SIC code 78109, recruitment and employment agencies, on the August 2026 Companies House snapshot. 24,143 of them list it as their first SIC code and 5,533 carry it in one of their other three slots, so 81 per cent lead with it. Together they are 0.6 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register.
How do I build a list of UK recruitment agencies?
Filter the Companies House register by SIC code 78109. Narrow it by registered-office postcode (London holds the largest share at 26 per cent) and by incorporation date if you want companies still choosing suppliers. Match on any SIC position rather than the first when you need reach, and on the first position when you need precision. Every lead Leadistry delivers carries the company record, the director's name, a verified website and a verified email.
Is it legal to cold email recruitment agencies in the UK?
Contacting a company at a published business address is normal B2B outreach under UK GDPR and PECR, on the lawful basis of legitimate interest. Every message must identify you and carry a working opt-out. Anyone who asks to be removed is suppressed across the whole system, and a company that asks us directly has its record taken out within 24 hours.
29,676 recruitment agencies. Filtered to the ones worth writing to.
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