Healthcare runs on people. A ward that's two nurses short at 3am, a care home that needs a senior carer by Friday, a GP practice covering a locum's week off: somewhere behind each of those is a recruitment agency. There are hundreds of them in the UK, and until now there's been no straight way to tell them apart.
Agencies tell you they're the best. Review sites tell you who paid. Directories tell you who exists. None of that helps a nurse choosing who to work through, or a hiring manager choosing who to trust with their rota.
So we built the thing we wanted to exist.
Who we are
HealthAgencies.co.uk is an independent UK site about healthcare recruitment. We're not an agency and we don't place staff ourselves. No agency owns, funds or controls us; our independence page sets out exactly what that means.
We test 484 UK healthcare recruitment agencies, and we rank them in 8 professions, from nursing and social care to doctors, allied health, pharmacy and more.
What we do
We rank agencies with the same tests for everyone
Every agency is assessed the same way, at the same time, from evidence that can be checked: official registers, NHS procurement records, company filings and what each agency publishes about itself. The biggest national names and the smallest local specialists go through exactly the same method, and we keep the evidence behind every result.
We list real jobs
Our jobs come from agencies' own websites, so what you see is what they're actually recruiting for. You can save your details once and apply through us in a few taps, and every job tells you which agency is behind it and how that agency ranks.
We help hirers find the right agency
NHS trusts, care homes, clinics and councils can tell us what they need, and see a shortlist of agencies from our rankings that fit: the right professions, the right part of the country, the right kind of work.
We help candidates get matched
If you'd rather not search at all, upload your CV, tell us what you're looking for, and agencies with matching jobs can contact you. You decide who sees your details, and you can switch it off at any time.
What we believe
Agencies can't pay to rank
This is the whole point. The moment money changes where an agency appears, a ranking stops being information and becomes advertising. Agencies can claim and verify their profile for free, correct their details and add their logo. None of that moves them up a list.
The same method for everyone
No agency is treated as a special case. When an agency shows us something we missed, it's assessed with the same method as everyone else's evidence, and when we improve the method, the improvement applies to every agency at once. No private deals, no quiet exceptions.
Open about our principles, not our formula
How we rank sets out the principles behind every ranking in plain words. We don't publish the formula, because the day we do, agencies start optimising for the formula instead of for the people they place.
Flexible work keeps good people in healthcare
Agency work gets a bad press. But for a lot of nurses, carers and doctors, flexible shifts are what make the job possible alongside children, study, caring for a parent or simply a life. Done well, agency work keeps experienced people in healthcare who would otherwise leave it. Our job is to help people find the agencies that do it well.
Candidates and hirers deserve better information
Choosing an agency is a real decision. It affects your pay, your shifts and how you're treated, or, if you're hiring, the safety of your service. That decision deserves better than a glossy homepage and a five-star badge someone bought. It deserves facts that are checked, compared fairly and explained.
What we're not
We're not a review site: we don't publish anonymous star ratings. Where we show a Google rating, it's for reference only and never affects a ranking.
We're not finished, either. We'll add more evidence, more jobs and more ways to compare, and every change to the method applies to everyone at once. When we get something wrong, tell us and we'll put it right.
Where to start
- Looking for work? Browse real jobs, or get matched and let agencies with the right jobs come to you.
- Hiring staff? Find the right agency for your organisation, or start with the overall ranking.
- Run an agency? Claim or verify your profile. It's free, and it always will be.
Where next?
- Looking for work? Browse jobs or upload your CV and agencies with matching jobs can contact you.
- Hiring staff? Find an agency from our rankings.
- Run an agency? Verify your agency. It's free, and no one can pay to rank.
- Curious how it works? How we rank agencies or see the overall ranking.