Why Buy and Build Wins in Specialist Recruitment

Market context: 2024- 2025

Specialist recruitment is fragmented by design. Clients pay for depth, not breadth. That is why thousands of niche firms keep winning even when the wider market cools. Over the last year that cooling was clear: in the UK, KPMG/REC reported permanent placements falling into July- August 2025 and starting salaries growing at the weakest pace in four and a half years. In short, there is hesitation at the top of the funnel, more candidates at the bottom and many programmes paused rather than cancelled.

Across the Atlantic, the cycle looks similar. Staffing Industry Analysts estimate that US staffing revenue fell about 10% in 2024, with growth returning in 2025. The turn is modest, but staffing often moves ahead of the wider economy. When activity picks up, it tends to show up here first.

Why buy and build outperforms

Buy-and-build turns specialist strength into platform advantage. The best niche firms already have trust and a clear lane. What they often lack is the shared engine that makes growth faster: common tech and data, strong compliance and finance, a repeatable mobilisation playbook and the ability to take a capability that works in Dublin or Singapore and stand it up in Madrid or Dubai without starting again. Bain’s 2024 Global Private Equity Report puts it plainly: when multiple expansion is limited, operating execution is the value-creation lever.

Evidence from recent deals

Deal flow supports this view. North American staffing M&A barely blinked: 102 announced deals in 2024 versus 114 in 2023, with a strong Q2. By April 2025, Capstone Partners tracked the space up around 9% year on year. Strategic buyers kept consolidating while valuations normalised. The headline is simple: disciplined acquirers did not stop; they became more selective and sharper.

Discipline turns a roll-up into a platform

Discipline means buying durable demand and backing leaders with skin in the game. It means sequencing integration so nothing breaks. It also means using workforce data to speed decisions. When you can see current skills, adjacent skills and training pathways clearly, match quality improves and time-to-deploy compresses. Knowing when not to tinker matters too: protect the specialist edge and scale the parts that compound.

What stakeholders gain

The payoff appears quietly and then obviously. Clients get the capacity and consistency of a larger group without losing the sector fluency they value. Founders keep their identity and gain the operating leverage to win bigger programmes and enter new markets. Counterparties see predictable execution. Shareholders get growth that does not rely on heroics, just steady compounding from buying what is proven, building what compounds and staying disciplined while the cycle turns.

Looking ahead

If the last 18 months were about patience, the next 18 are about positioning. Hiring caution is real so is the early-stage recovery and the resilience of specialist demand. Platforms that did the unglamorous work… clean systems, common MI and tight mobilisation, tend to take share first when budgets unlock.

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Sources

KPMG/REC Report on Jobs (Jul–Aug 2025); Staffing Industry Analysts US forecasts (2024/2025); Bain Global Private Equity Report 2024; Momentum Advisory Partners (2024 staffing M&A); Capstone Partners HR & Staffing M&A Update (Apr 2025). KPMG+1The RECStaffing Industry Analysts+1Bain+1Momentum Advisory PartnersCapstone Partners