ONE of London’s most successful digital recruitment agencies has hired an ex-Sage executive and opened a Tyneside office to break into the northern market.
Futureheads Recruitment has appointed former Sage UK Talent Lead Susan Miller to head up its new base, in Dobson House, Newcastle, and has already recruited four new team members. The company works with high-growth tech start-ups, established corporates and everything in between, including consultancies – a longstanding client is Newcastle-based Opencast.
Futureheads aims to be employing a team of ten or more in Newcastle by the end of this year.
The company was established in 2009 by four co-founders, including North East entrepreneur Charlie Hoult, and its recruiters specialise in digital engineering, user experience and service design, tech development and testing, and product and project management across part-time and full-time roles.
Futureheads currently employs about 60 people – and the team has almost doubled in size over the last 12 months. Business growth has been particularly strong in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh – and London, where growth doubled last year.
Susan explained: “The company’s recent growth has been impressive and the time was right to look for an office outside of London. I’ll be joined in our new office by four recruitment consultants, and we’re also looking for a senior recruiter to support me.
“Our flexible, hybrid way of working means that our teams are connected to a base, but can work from home when they need to.
“Our new base is partially a reaction to becoming a more distributed workforce, post pandemic, and partially to the company finding more clients outside of the capital.
“Futureheads is well-known and respected in London and its reputation is now spreading across the UK – our new Tyneside base will help with this. There is a lively, vibrant tech sector in the north east and we’re looking forward to being part of it and working with companies and organisations of all sizes.”
Nathan Callaghan, Futureheads MD based at the company’s London HQ, added: “Charlie Hoult’s role as a co-founder of Futureheads means that we’ve always had an interest – and connection – in the north east, but our reason for choosing Newcastle as a new base was also to do with Susan’s leadership and development knowledge and experience. After meeting her, we knew she’d be a great fit for the company and it made sense to build a team around her in her native north east.
“Charlie’s connections in the region are a huge, added bonus, as is the region’s proximity to the Scottish market.
“Covid has fundamentally changed the way in which so many companies work – in creating our first hub, and there may be more on the way, we are keeping in step with our customer base, matching and mirroring the way in which our clients have changed their business model.
“Since the pandemic began we’ve seen our workforce move out from London across the UK so the timing was right to create a new permanent presence – we’re no longer London centric and our workforce is becoming more distributed across the UK.
“There is a saturation of the market in London and the South East, but there’s no doubt that there is serious tech talent spread widely across the UK, and especially in the North East. I’ve seen for myself the level of talent in the region through client interviews – talent is there in abundance and it’s definitely the right place for us to find more Futureheads.
“There is also a critical mass of brilliant tech and digital companies in the region. The sector is expanding at an incredible rate and we’re in a great place to help these organisations grow and prosper in their native region.
“We’re delighted Susan is leading our north east team, she is well networked across the region and her background in nurturing and developing talent is something that really impressed us and will help us grow our North East presence.
“We’re already working with Tyneside tech company Opencast, helping them recruit another 200 people before Christmas.”
Susan was at Sage for about 17 years and led several teams before moving to early careers recruitment, before being appointed as the company’s UK Talent Lead in 2019.
Futureheads was founded by Charlie Hoult, Be Kaler (correct) Pilgrim, Gill Arnold and Rachel Murray in 2009
For more information, log on to www.wearefutureheads.com