Tile Hill Wins Best Public/Third Sector Recruitment Agency and Best Candidate Care at the Recruiter Awards

Oh, what a night. Tile Hill picked up three wins and a highly commended at the 2026 Recruiter Awards:

🏆 Best Public/Third Sector Recruitment Agency

🏆 Best Candidate Care

🏆 Recruitment Leader of the Year for Managing Director David Weir

🎖️ and highly commended for Most Effective Back Office Team for our brilliant Operations team.

Putting candidates at the heart of all we do, knowing the public and civil society sector inside out, and having exceptional people behind the scenes: we focus on these things every day, so it's brilliant to be recognised for them and continue to be award-winning for the things we know make a difference to our candidates and clients, and colleagues, every day.

The judges across the awards we won mentioned to our team during the evening that the specificity and evidence in our award entries stood out, which matters to us as much as the wins themselves.  They're judged on evidence: case studies, data, named examples, stories, testimonials and quotes from across our clients and candidates. None of that is possible to share in an award entry if the substance isn’t behind it. 

Below I’d like to take the time to share a bit more about those entries, the evidence behind them and what the judges told us stood out about Tile Hill and why we were chosen:

Best Public/Third Sector Recruitment Agency

Being the winner of the Public/Third Sector Recruitment Agency award demonstrates the impact our team is having across local government, housing, central government and civil society and builds on our win in the same category at the 2026 British Recruitment Awards.

Some of the results we shared in our entry include:

• Over 1,500 senior appointments
• We’ve an annual client retention rate of 79%
• 95% of our clients would actively recommend Tile Hill
• Our net promoter score of +85 is deemed world class (as of today it has increased to +91 for clients and candidates)
• 80% of our appointments are in post 2 years’ after placement

We also shared a variety of case studies, including where we  were contacted by a council deemed ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted and asked to recruit a team of experts to lead its improvement journey and change organisational culture. Offering guidance, advice and insight to the interim director of children’s services (DCS), we filled more than 20 interim positions. The council was deemed to be ‘good’ on its next Ofsted inspection, with the DCS acknowledging this would not have been possible without our support.

Judges’ comments

“Tile Hill’s success is perhaps best represented by their world-class net promoter scores and client retention. Their data and stats-focused submission showed a commitment to quality of hire and client impact. Examples included how a progressive approach to recruitment and securing talent can impact clients, quite literally transforming understaffed and underperforming organisations into high-performing organisations. 

“Their partnership-led approach and laser focus on client feedback has resulted in excellent testimonials and measurable impact.”

Best Candidate Care

The Best Candidate Care award reflects the day-to-day experience of working with Tile Hill and how it is the driving motivation through every aspect of the business.

We ask for feedback from everyone who goes through a process with us - successful or not - and every client who works with us too, no matter how long they've worked with Tile Hill. This feedback was a core part of the evidence we submitted to demonstrate that our commitment delivers exceptional experiences and results.

As I write this blog, our Net Promoter Score for candidates is +90, with 92% of candidates saying they’d actively recommend Tile Hill. For context, a world-class score is +70, but we continue to strive to go way beyond people’s expectations because we know the impact that has on the people who are making life-changing decisions about their careers, and the organisations we're representing, who want the best talent.

This is further evidence by:

• 85% of our clients being repeat customers (many of whom began as candidates)
• 97% first-tie fill ratio reflecting our process that ensures candidates have every opportunity to perform at their best

A story we included in our entry was when Kathryn Reed provided honest counsel and emotional support to a client who faced a difficult environment after being placed into a transformation role at a Council. Kathryn stayed present throughout and supported the candidate when they decided to leave. Months later, when the council invited the candidate back, Kathryn facilitated their return. That candidate now recruits their own interim team through Tile Hill in their role as executive director of place.

Judges’ comments

“In a category that is all about candidate care, putting forward moving personal stories of real candidates gave Tile Hill standout in a well-populated set of entries. Their inclusive recruitment programme, which was co-designed to achieve high accessibility standards, is one for the industry to study and adopt.

Recruitment Leader of the Year: David Weir

Our founder and Managing Director, David Weir, received the award for Recruitment Leader of the Year. He launched Tile Hill in 2017 to prove that public sector recruitment could be done differently, with higher standards, deeper relationships and a genuine commitment to the people going through the recruitment process.

David holds overall accountability for Tile Hill’s strategy, culture, commercial performance and leadership of our team of 50 specialists working across local government, housing, government, civil society and corporate resource functions. He is acknowledged as one of the sector’s top business leaders, and his commitment to our clients, candidates, colleagues, the public sector as well as championing the recruitment industry knows no bounds.

Our entry highlighted the period between October 2024 and December 2025 and the Recruiter Awards summarised some of the highlights that contributed to this win:

“The period between October 2024 and December 2025 saw years of deliberate investment in candidate and client experience produce their most visible results, with the business continuing to grow commercially and its culture recognised externally with a strong of awards, including Tile Hill being named the top interim service provider in the Institute of Interim Management Survey 2025 (up from 67th in 2017). Colleagues describe him as a leader who sees potential before people see it in themselves.”

Judges’ comments

“David provided an exceptional entry with outstanding quantifiable evidence of leadership, culture and customer impact. Tile Hill’s rise from 67th to first in the IIM Survey 2025 (and 2026) for candidate experience demonstrates a rigorous and relentless commitment to excellence."

“The Business achieved impressive people metrics, including 96% staff retention, 43.5% internal promotions and a 100% psychological safety score.”

“Multiple REC and Tiara award wins across 2024 and 2025 further validate the strength of David’s leadership and Tile Hill’s wider impact on the recruitment industry.”

Highly Commended: Most Effective Back Office Team (Tile Hill Operations)

We are also extremely proud of our operations team for coming highly commended in the Most Effective Back Office Team category, alongside being shortlisted for Most Effective Compliance Operation. Our award-winning operations team aren’t seen as back office and are integral to the success of our entire business – supporting our award-winning candidate experience and the smooth running of Tile Hill as we continue to grow.

What awards mean, beyond the celebration

I recently wrote about the importance of award nominations and wins – both in our industry as well as those we sponsor in the sectors we recruit into. I stand by every word, and the conversations in the office, on our group chats and channels and between colleagues today speaks to that pride and joy at being recognised for our commitment and hard work. None of this happens without the team, so congratulations and well done to everyone at Tile Hill.

Further award nominations to keep our fingers crossed for

The Recruiter Awards was a brilliant start to our industry award season, but it doesn’t stop there and the team are excited to be finalists at the Recruitment Employment Confederation (REC) and British Recruitment Awards later in the year for the following categories:

REC Awards:

• Candidate Experience of the Year – Chris Barrow
• Candidate Experience of the Year – Chantelle Wooldridge
• Shared Services Team – Tile Hill’s Marketing team
• Impact on a client’s business – a joint entry with disability charity, Hft
• Diversity Initiative of the Year for our co-sponsorship of Different Leadership Development programme

British Recruitment Awards:

• Public/Third Sector Agency of the Year
• Rising Star of the Year – Chris Barrow
• Rising Star of the Year – Chantelle Wooldridge
• Agency Recruitment Team of the Year (20+ employees) – Tile Hill’s Marketing team

Working with an award-winning team

If you're weighing up leadership search or interim support across Local Government, Housing Government, or Civil Society, and wish to explore working with an award-winning team who have deep networks, secure exceptional talent for even the hard-to-fill roles and genuinely care about your experience as a client or a candidate, please get in touch. We’d be delighted to support your team and your career.