Whenever someone tells me that AI is saving their recruiters five hours a week, my next question is always:
What happened to those five hours?
Did they generate more client conversations, placements and net fee income?
Were they reinvested in account development, candidate relationships or better-quality work?
Or did the same commercial output simply become slightly easier to produce?
Because those are not the same thing.
Recruitment businesses now have more technology, automation and ways to communicate than ever before. Teams can produce job adverts in seconds, hold client meetings without leaving their desks and contact thousands of people through automated campaigns.
There is certainly more activity.
But are we genuinely more productive?
Doing something faster does not automatically make it more productive
AI adoption in recruitment is accelerating.
LinkedIn’s international Future of Recruiting 2025 report found that 37% of recruiting organisations were actively integrating or experimenting with generative AI, up from 27% a year earlier.
In Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index, 66% of AI users said it had allowed them to spend more time on high-value work, while 58% said they were producing work they could not have produced a year earlier.
But “high-value work” is open to interpretation.
If a recruiter uses AI to write a job advert in ten minutes rather than forty, that is an efficiency gain. If the advert is better written, that may also be a quality gain.
Useful? Absolutely.
Evidence that the recruiter, team or business has become more commercially productive? Not necessarily.
Personally, I think we have become too comfortable describing every efficiency gain as productivity.
The real question is what happens next.
Does the saved time result in more vacancies, stronger conversion rates, additional placements or better client relationships? Does the involvement of your AI tool in a placement process make placements happen that would not have, otherwise?
Does it increase net fee income per fee-earner?
And once the cost of the technology, training and implementation is taken into account, has it produced a worthwhile commercial return?
The existing research demonstrates the direction of travel, but it does not tell us specifically what is happening inside UK recruitment businesses, or whether time saved is translating into profitable growth.
That is the evidence gap this survey is intended to address.
What are we actually measuring?
Recruitment businesses can measure calls, messages, CVs, interviews, vacancies, placements, billings and hours saved.
Each figure tells us something. None, on its own, tells us whether the business is becoming more profitably productive.
I regularly hear about a new tool or initiative that has “transformed productivity.” When I ask how that has been measured, the answer is often based on activity, adoption or time saved.
Those are inputs.
I want to know what changed commercially.
For this research, one of our central measures will be net fee income per fee-earner: net invoiced sales after rebates and refunds, divided by the average number of full-time-equivalent fee-earners.
We will also explore productivity among recruiters in their first, second and third-plus years of service.
And we’ll be looking at the data through the lens of sector and business size. It’s possible that initiatives that have real results in one arena are rejected by clients, candidates and colleagues in another specialism.
That distinction matters. An initiative that helps an experienced recruiter produce more may have a very different effect on someone still learning the market, developing judgement and building relationships.
Are we underestimating the value of being in the room?
Technology is only one part of the productivity question.
Virtual meetings reduce travel, simplify diaries and make it possible to fit more conversations into a working day.
Again, those are genuine efficiencies.
But are they producing the strongest commercial results?
Or do client site visits, in-person management, team meetings, training and coaching create better understanding, stronger relationships and improved performance?
I have a view on this.
I suspect we may find that some of the activities which look less efficient on paper, particularly client visits, face-to-face coaching and properly structured in-person meetings, are producing greater commercial value.
But my view is not evidence. A survey designed simply to confirm what I already think would be fairly pointless.
We need to understand what is actually happening.
A client site visit takes longer than a thirty-minute video call. On a basic time-and-motion measure, it may look less efficient.
But if that visit gives the recruiter a better understanding of the environment, uncovers another hiring requirement or materially improves the client relationship, it may create substantially more value.
The quickest activity is not automatically the most productive one.
Equally, bringing people into an office more frequently does not guarantee results. If the time is badly structured or dominated by unnecessary meetings, it may add cost without improving output.
It is the commercial result – not the location itself – that matters.
Which initiatives are creating direct value?
AI and working location tend to dominate the conversation, but recruitment businesses are investing in many other approaches.
These include account development, re-engaging previous clients, site visits, events, content, market insight, training, process changes and new services for clients.
Some may be widely used because they are effective. Others may be popular because they are visible, fashionable or relatively easy to introduce.
I have seen plenty of initiatives create an immediate burst of activity. That is not the same as creating lasting productivity.
Nor is a positive reaction to training evidence that behaviour changed or commercial performance improved. There is a reason I am not particularly interested in “happy sheets.”
The more useful questions are:
What measurable effect did the initiative have?
What additional value did it generate?
What did implementation cost?
And how confident are you that one caused the other?
I want to understand what is actually working
Recruitment Leadership has launched the Recruitment Productivity Survey 2026 to establish what recruitment businesses are doing differently and which approaches are producing measurable commercial results.
It is open to people at every level within UK recruitment businesses, including owners, directors, divisional leaders, billing managers, fee-earners and operational teams.
We are exploring:
- How productivity has changed compared with 2025
- Net fee income per fee-earner
- The initiatives producing the greatest measurable impact
- AI-generated time savings versus increased output
- The commercial impact of in-person and virtual working
- What has improved productivity and what has mainly made work easier
The purpose is not to prove that one particular way of working is universally better.
It is to understand where recruitment businesses are seeing genuine results, where perception and measurement differ, and which investments appear to be creating the strongest direct value.
The findings will be analysed and shared in a full report. Everyone who completes the survey can request a free copy.
If you work in a UK recruitment business, I would be grateful for your contribution.
Complete the Recruitment Productivity Survey 2026
It should take approximately five minutes. Responses will be treated confidentially and reported in aggregate.
The more evidence we collect, the better we can distinguish genuine productivity from additional activity, and make better decisions about where recruitment businesses invest their time and money.
About the Author: Alison Humphries Hon (FREC) is the founder of Recruitment Leadership Ltd, a strategic consultancy for the recruitment industry. With 40 years of experience, including leading teams, launching divisions in listed companies and personally negotiating global contracts worth over £120 million per year – Alison has helped hundreds of recruitment businesses maximise performance, enter new markets and prepare for sale. Learn more about Alison.
