Most organisations hiring into Facilities Management will come across two ways of working with a recruiter: contingent recruitment and retained search. Both have their place. The difference lies less in the fee than in how the work is done, who is approached and how much of the risk the process is designed to remove.
How contingent recruitment works
In a contingent model, the recruiter is paid only if a candidate they introduce is hired. Several agencies may work on the same role at once. The model works well for roles where the market is active, the requirement is well understood and speed matters more than depth: many coordinator, assistant and manager-level FM roles fall into this category.
The limitation is built into the incentive. Because payment depends on being first to present a hireable CV, contingent recruitment tends to favour candidates who are already looking and quick to reach. For senior, confidential or scarce roles, that is often not where the best candidate is.
How retained search works
In a retained search, one firm is appointed exclusively and the fee is typically paid in stages. There is commitment on both sides: the client commits to the process, and the search firm commits to mapping the whole market rather than the visible part of it.
A retained search usually includes:
- a detailed briefing that tests the role before it goes to market
- market mapping to identify the organisations and people most relevant to the brief
- direct, confidential approaches to people who are not actively looking
- structured assessment against agreed criteria
- regular reporting, including what the market is saying about the role and the package
- a shortlist, support through interviews, referencing, the offer and counter-offers
When retained search is the right choice
Retained search earns its fee when the cost of getting the appointment wrong is high. That usually means:
- Senior roles: Heads of Facilities or Estates, directors and executive appointments.
- Confidential searches: replacing an incumbent, or hiring ahead of an announcement.
- Scarce profiles: for example, leaders with experience of higher-risk residential buildings or NHS estates compliance.
- Several leadership hires at once: where the appointments need to work together.
- Repeat failures: roles that have been advertised or worked on by several agencies without success.
The candidates you need for these roles are often settled and not applying. Hays' 2026 UK research found 62% of respondents plan to move jobs in the coming year, but intention is not the same as applying, and senior people rarely respond to adverts.
Why the choice matters
A poor hire is costly at any level. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation found that a poor hire at mid-manager level on a £42,000 salary can cost a business more than £132,000. At senior level the exposure is greater: service failures, compliance risk, lost team members and time spent recovering.
In our experience, most senior FM hiring failures are judgement failures, not sourcing failures. The brief was unclear, the stakeholders wanted different things, or the process moved too slowly for the best candidates. A good retained search deals with those risks before a single candidate is approached.
What to ask a search partner
Before you appoint anyone on a retained basis, ask them:
- How will you test our brief before going to market?
- Who will actually run the search, and how much of their time will it take?
- How will you map the market, and will you share that mapping with us?
- How will you assess candidates, and against what criteria?
- How often will you report, and what will the reports include?
- What happens if the appointment does not work out?
You can read more about our approach on our FM executive search page. For a detailed walk through each stage, download our Insights ebook How Retained Executive Search Works in FM.
Talk to Maxwell Stephens
Maxwell Stephens has specialised in Facilities Management, estates and workplace recruitment since 2006. If you are planning an FM, estates or workplace appointment, contact us for a confidential conversation, or read our case studies to see how comparable searches were run.
