Setting the scene
Lindsey Davies and Claire Martin from Source Pay International opened with a stark comparison: 40,000+ agencies scrapping over the same UK roles, perm margins at 12–15% and falling – set against international markets where agency penetration is a fraction of the UK's and contractor margins run at 20–30%+.
The Top 10 countdown took the room through the hottest hiring markets of 2026/27. Germany's chronic engineering shortages. The Netherlands' embedded freelancer culture. APAC's extraordinary contractor demand. Switzerland and the US topping the margins table. And a timely reminder that geopolitics – the Strait of Hormuz among them – is now a recruitment variable too.
The quiz that closed the session made sure the knowledge stuck.
The compliance conversation
Matt Knowles from NorthStar People brought 27 years of international contract experience to the question nobody wants to get wrong: how do you sell into these markets without creating a liability?
His answer was direct. Compliance isn't the small print. It's the proposition. Drawing on a $15m cautionary tale from a 2006 Ericsson/Telstra project where compliance was scrapped in favour of speed, Matt walked the room through a five-stage framework – Map, Build, Prove, Sell, Sustain – for building a desk where compliance leads every conversation.
With the EU Platform Work Directive now in force and regulators actively auditing contractor classifications across multiple markets, the timing couldn't have been sharper.
The room
The format did what it was designed to do. Ideas worth acting on. And a group of leaders who'll stay in touch – because when you're building something new, you want to be around people doing the same.
