We ran the same website audit we offer agencies across 157 UK recruitment agency websites, from household-name national brands to two-person independents. 137 could be loaded and confirmed as recruitment agencies. The full results, methodology and charts are in our report, The state of UK recruitment websites 2026. This article picks out what the numbers mean for an agency owner deciding where to spend time and budget.
The seven findings at a glance
| What we measured | Result |
|---|---|
| Median mobile performance score (Google PageSpeed Insights) | 57 out of 100 |
| Sites scoring 90+ (Google's "good" band) on mobile | 0 of 129 tested |
| Median mobile score, large national brands | 39 |
| Own-site job pages with complete JobPosting markup | 21% |
| Named by an AI assistant for their own niche and location | 36% |
| Clear client call to action on the home page | 56% |
| Organization structured data on the home page | 45% |
1. Nobody is fast on a phone, and the biggest brands are slowest
Not one of the 129 sites we could speed-test reached Google's "good" band for mobile performance. The median score was 57, and the large national brands came out slowest of all with a median of 39, against 59 for small and independent agencies. Big sites tend to carry more tracking scripts, chat widgets and heavy imagery, and it shows.
There is a fairer reading too. Google's lab test is deliberately strict, and for the 76 sites with enough real-visitor data, 74% loaded their main content within 2.5 seconds for real mobile users. Even so, half of the home pages weighed more than 3 MB, which is a lot to ask of a candidate on a train. Our guide to Core Web Vitals for recruitment websites covers the fixes in order.
2. Four in five agencies are missing out on Google for Jobs
Google for Jobs is free distribution for every vacancy you advertise, but only when each job page carries complete JobPosting structured data. Just 21% of agencies had that on their own job pages. Another 36% host jobs on their own site with no JobPosting markup in the HTML, and 8% load their jobs only with JavaScript.
This is the single most fixable gap in the study. You can test any advert in seconds with our free Google for Jobs checker, and our guide explains why jobs don't show on Google for Jobs.
3. AI assistants already have favourites, and most agencies aren't among them
For each agency we asked an AI assistant with live web search the question a client might ask: which agencies would you recommend for this niche in this location? It named around eight agencies per answer. Only 36% of the agencies we tested were among them. Large brands did better (50%), but small specialists that state their niche clearly held their own at 35%, ahead of mid-sized firms at 29%.
AI answers vary day to day, so treat this as a snapshot. The pattern fits how these assistants choose: they recommend agencies whose specialism, location and track record are spelled out on their own site and repeated on directories they trust. More in how to get your recruitment agency recommended by ChatGPT.
4. The technical basics are in place. The detail isn't.
HTTPS (99%), a mobile viewport (100%) and an XML sitemap (91%) are close to universal. The gaps are in the detail that helps search engines and AI understand a business:
- Only 45% have Organization structured data on the home page.
- 39% have either no H1 heading or more than one.
- 26% have page titles long enough to be cut off in search results.
- 10% have no meta description at all.
None of these takes more than an afternoon to fix. Our recruitment agency SEO checklist lists them in priority order.
5. Too many home pages forget the client
A recruitment website has two audiences. 56% of home pages had a clear client call to action such as "submit a vacancy", and 55% had one for candidates, but only 41% had both. If a hiring manager lands on your home page and can't see how to brief you within a few seconds, the rest of your marketing is working harder than it needs to.
What we would do first
If you only have a day, spend it in this order:
- 01Test three of your live job adverts with a Google for Jobs checker and fix whatever is missing.
- 02Run your home page through PageSpeed Insights on mobile and remove or defer the heaviest third-party scripts.
- 03Put your specialism and location in your page title, H1 and first paragraph.
- 04Add Organization structured data and make sure your directory listings say the same thing.
- 05Give clients their own obvious next step on the home page.
The full report has every chart, the breakdown by agency size, platform data and the methodology: read The state of UK recruitment websites 2026.