Why Good Facilities Managers Are Hard to Recruit

Ask any employer who has tried to hire a strong Facilities Manager recently and you will hear a familiar story: plenty of applications, very few people who fit. Roles stay open for months, preferred candidates accept counteroffers and second-choice appointments do not last.

There are good reasons for this. Some are about the market. Others are about how organisations recruit, and those are the ones employers can fix.

1. The skills shortage is real

In SFG20's 2026 survey, 51% of organisations reported a shortage of FM staff. Across the wider UK economy, ManpowerGroup found that 73% of businesses are struggling to find skilled talent in 2026. Facilities Management is exposed on both fronts: it competes for engineers with construction and manufacturing, and for managers with every other sector.

2. The role asks for a rare combination

A strong Facilities Manager needs a technical understanding of building systems and compliance, the leadership to run teams and contractors, and the commercial sense to manage budgets and explain decisions to senior leaders. Many capable people have developed one side well and the other less so. Technical specialists may lack stakeholder experience; strong service managers may lack engineering depth. The pool of people with both is small.

3. The brief keeps growing

Sustainability, workplace experience, smart-building technology and building safety have all been added to the role in recent years. Many job descriptions now read like three jobs in one. Every extra "essential" requirement shrinks the pool further, often without improving the eventual hire.

4. The best candidates are not looking

Good Facilities Managers are usually employed, valued and busy. Totaljobs found that 66% of UK workers are passively open to moving (not applying, but willing for the right offer), while only 18% are actively job-seeking. Advertising reaches the minority. Reaching the rest means approaching people directly, with a role that is clearly described and worth their time.

5. Counteroffers and late dropouts

When a good Facilities Manager resigns, their employer often fights to keep them. Robert Half found that 53% of UK employees who last received a counteroffer accepted it, although 34% of those had left within six months and 74% within a year. The CIPD found that 27% of organisations that recruited in the past year had problems with counteroffers or candidates dropping out after accepting.

Employers who lose candidates at this stage have often not tested motivation early enough, or have let the process drag.

6. Slow processes lose good people

The average time to hire in the UK reached 12 weeks in spring 2026, according to Totaljobs. Senior FM processes can run longer, with several stakeholders, panel diaries and sign-offs to manage. Strong candidates rarely wait, and a process that stalls tells them the role is not a priority.

7. Pay has not kept up with the role

Greenhouse found that salary below expectations was the top reason UK candidates rejected job offers, cited by 48%. Our 2026 Facilities Management salary guide puts Facilities Manager salaries at £40,000 to £65,000, and across 63 permanent Facilities Manager roles we advertised between 2023 and 2026, the median top-of-range salary was £50,000. Roles that have grown in scope but are still benchmarked against an old job description struggle to compete.

What employers can do

• Agree the brief before you start, and decide which capabilities are essential for your estate and which are genuinely optional.
• Benchmark the salary against the role as it is now, not as it was.
• Run a short, fixed timetable with interview dates agreed in advance.
• Test motivation and counteroffer risk early, not at offer stage.
• Use structured, evidence-based interviews to assess technical and leadership ability.
• Approach passive candidates directly, or work with a specialist who can.

The value of specialist recruitment

Specialist FM recruiters know the market, the people in it and what a realistic brief looks like. Maxwell Stephens has specialised in Facilities Management, estates and workplace recruitment since 2006, with more than 50,000 FM professionals in our network across the UK and Europe. 95% of the candidates we place remain in role a year after appointment, because we spend as much time getting the brief right as we do finding the people.

Talk to Maxwell Stephens

Our founding principles have not changed since the business started: specialist knowledge of the FM market, and honesty about what a role needs. If you are struggling to fill a Facilities Manager position, talk to our team, or see how we have helped similar organisations.