A slowing labour market should, in theory, be a hiring manager’s dream. The CVs come faster, the competition thins and salary expectations soften. But anyone trying to recruit a leader capable of driving real commercial growth right now will tell you the opposite is true.
The applications are landing, but the people who could actually transform a business have gone quiet. For mid-sized organisations expected to power UK economic growth over the next 18 months, that is a serious problem.
Growth is the mandate, but the hiring tap is off
ONS figures for February to April 2026 show UK vacancies have fallen to 705,000, the lowest level since early 2021. The unemployment rate sits at 5.0%, and regular pay growth has cooled to 3.4%. On paper, employers have the upper hand. Yet the Bank of England still forecasts modest UK GDP growth through 2026 and mid-sized businesses, those £10m to £250m turnover firms that contribute roughly a third of private sector revenue, are being asked to deliver a disproportionate share of it.
The contradiction is brutal. Boards want expansion. Finance directors want headcount frozen. HR sits in the middle, told to recruit transformational leaders without transformational budgets. The standard response, posting roles and waiting for applications, was built for a buoyant market. It cannot deliver what’s needed now.
The candidates you need aren’t looking
When markets soften, the executives capable of driving revenue growth become harder to reach, not easier. ONS labour market data shows resignations have fallen from their 2022 peak. Senior leaders sitting on strong P&Ls, stable teams and long-vesting equity are not testing the market. They are sitting tight.
The CVs flooding inboxes overwhelmingly come from executives whose previous employers made them redundant, restructured around them, or quietly nudged them out. Some are excellent. Many are not. The operators you actually want, those with a track record of growing mid-market businesses through choppy conditions, are focused on delivering for someone else. They will not see your advert. They will not respond to a generic InMail. And they will not engage with a process that treats them like an applicant.
Standard processes buckle at the top
Conventional HR-led recruitment was not designed for this. Competency frameworks built for functional hires reveal little about a leader’s capacity to navigate ambiguity, rebuild commercial momentum, or hold their nerve during a downturn. Structured interviews, however well-intentioned, struggle to surface the judgement that separates a competent director from a genuine growth driver.
The timelines are also wrong. Senior executives open to a move, even tentatively, will not wait six weeks between first conversation and offer. They will not tolerate four-stage panels with stakeholders who have not read the brief. And they will not accept a package benchmarked against a 2023 market that no longer exists. By the time most processes conclude, the strongest candidates have either pulled out or never engaged in the first place.
What good looks like now
Hire for adaptive capability and not pedigree. The leaders who move the needle in a flat market are those who have run businesses through compression before, made decisions with incomplete data and grown revenue without proportionate cost. Audit your shortlists for that, not for logos.
Treat executive recruitment as a strategic intervention rather than a transaction. Build genuine market intelligence on who is performing where. Map target individuals 12 months before you need them. Engage through trusted intermediaries rather than open advertising. The cost of a senior mis-hire (recruitment fees, training, lost productivity and replacement) can exceed £132,000 (REC), dwarfing any saving from cutting corners on search.
And define commercial impact before you define the job. What revenue, margin or market position must this person deliver in 24 months? If your brief cannot answer that, no candidate will. The same discipline applies to internal succession: too many pipelines look healthy on paper and thin out the moment you pressure-test them.
The market won’t wait, and neither will they
Mid-sized businesses that wait for the labour market to “normalise” before investing in senior leadership will spend 2026 watching better-prepared competitors take their share. ONS data points to a slow grind, not a recession, which means the firms that hire decisively now will be ahead for years.
The ones that freeze will find, when conditions turn, that the leaders they wanted have already been hired by someone braver. Boards that confuse caution with prudence will pay for it twice: once in lost growth, and again in the premium they eventually pay to catch up. The cost of the wrong hire is high. The cost of no hire is higher.
Amy Speake is the CEO of a global talent advisory firm, specialising in leadership strategy and board advisory. With over 20 years of experience partnering with FTSE 100 and international organisations, she leads transformative change and delivers strategic insights that shape the future of leadership. Amy writes regularly on resilient leadership, talent trends, and the power of adaptive strategy.
- Amy Speake
- Amy Speake
