Fred News – September 2025

September news at Fred

September you’ve been an interesting one!  We have a definite shift in the air at Fred in the subtle changes in workflow from our usual ‘bread and butter’ recruitment (often made up of temp recruitment through to mid management) to a strong pipeline of work in leadership and C-Suite. Being generalists we are here for our clients across a whole business and offer the unique perspective of being able to support quality growth in every area of your organisation, where and when needed.

We have reflected back on September 2025 vs September 2024 at Fred, to get an understanding of where the market has shifted, and found some interesting changes:

• The bulk of work we had Sept 2024, was construction and manufacturing based, and sat predominantly in the mid management space, versus Sept 2025 where we now have a much stronger demand recruiting into finance, senior leadership and corporate management roles, and a significant downturn in manufacturing and construction roles.

• Temp recruitment is down 35% Sept 2025 vs 2024 with only very recent signs of demand increasing toward the end of this month. A small but hopeful sign that production is showing small signs of coming back to life in some sectors.

• Candidates are juggling multiple opportunities now, vs singular, a year ago. This means offers need to be competitive, hiring processes tight and inductions strong for good retention.

• A 27% increase this September onboarding new roles with new clients, vs last September – a sign that perhaps ‘tried and true’ agency partnerships aren’t working anymore and are running thin in a tough market. With significant changes in the recruitment industry, big agencies downsizing or closing doors, choosing a stable recruitment partner is vital to the success of your partnership.

• We’ve continued to see strong momentum in senior leadership recruitment across the healthcare sector, a notable shift from this time last year when FredMed was primarily focused on the heavy demand for community pharmacists. Over recent months, there has been a clear increase in requests from clients seeking experienced leaders who can manage not only the day-to-day operational demands of healthcare services, but also provide the strategic direction required to strengthen future service delivery.

A spotlight on the manufacturing industry can be found here, via Steel Worx Group Director Chris Barett discussing the grim reality in the Herald this week.

We don’t like to finish on a downer at Fred however, so on a positive note – Fred has been named a finalist in the 2degrees Business Awards 2025 for Employer of the Year. We are absolutely chuffed about it, and can’t wait to join the celebrations in December and learn more about what other businesses are doing to continue to grow and thrive, in a tough economic climate.

As always we are here to support your recruitment and offer sound reliable and grounded recruitment advice whenever you need it.