Principal Consultant - Maintenance Perm

£40,000 £42,000 Basic + Commission to 30% + Quarterly Bonus.

Sometimes the best recruitment desks aren't the ones somebody has carefully packaged up for you. They're the ones where you can already see good jobs and placeable candidates slipping through the gaps because there simply aren't enough recruiters to work them. That's the situation here.

A major Built Environment recruitment business has an established London Maintenance operation spanning temporary and permanent recruitment. The permanent desk is already successful, so successful, in fact, that the existing consultant simply doesn't have the capacity to cover all of the opportunities available.

The demand isn't theoretical. They need another good recruiter to capitalise on it.

You'll join an established Maintenance team to recruit permanent blue-collar engineering professionals across London, the Home Counties and wider South East.

The market is broad and intentionally remains that way. You'll recruit the engineers and technicians responsible for keeping commercial buildings and facilities operational, covering disciplines such as:

These are predominantly mobile engineers (although some are based on larger sites permanently) covering buildings and portfolios across Central London, delivering planned, preventative and reactive maintenance programmes.

Your clients will typically be specialist Maintenance contractors delivering services into organisations such as Managing Agents, corporate occupiers and major FM providers. Some specialise narrowly, perhaps lifts, fire systems, controls or electrical maintenance. Others provide complete mechanical, electrical or Building Services maintenance solutions.

That breadth gives you choices. You can build a substantial generalist Maintenance Engineering desk or, as you become established, develop deeper ownership of a particular technical niche.

And there is plenty to get started with. You'll sit alongside an already successful permanent recruiter and a five-person blue-collar Maintenance team, creating a constant flow of market information, candidates, clients and potential vacancies.

The business already has established relationships and existing agreements across the market. The name is known and there will be warm leads to pursue from day one.

But this isn't an account-management job. You'll still be expected to develop business, create new relationships and build your own candidate network. The difference is that you're doing it from a platform where the market has already been proven rather than trying to persuade clients to take a chance on an unknown agency.

With typical salaries around £45,000 and fees commonly in the 15 17.5% range, there is no obvious reason why a strong recruiter shouldn't develop this into a £200k £300k personal billing desk quite rapidly.

This is a privately owned Built Environment recruitment group of almost 100 people, with its main London operation complemented by several regional offices.

The wider business recruits across multiple areas of the Built Environment, including Facilities Management, Maintenance, Construction and Engineering, across both temporary and permanent recruitment.

That breadth of scope matters because you'll be surrounded by recruiters talking to adjacent clients and candidates every day, creating considerably more crossover and market intelligence than you'd find sitting on an isolated Maintenance desk.

Despite its scale, the business has retained much of the entrepreneurial energy of a smaller recruitment company. Decisions can be made quickly. Good ideas can be acted upon. Strong performers can put their hand up for more.

You'll work from the London City office under a hands-on Director who remains closely involved in the commercial side of the business, rather than sitting several management layers away from the people actually recruiting.

The company continues to grow both in the UK and internationally, but there isn't a predetermined management agenda attached to this particular vacancy.

Come in and bill.

If, over time, you want to develop towards management, senior leadership or potentially explore opportunities within the company's international expansion, those routes exist. If you'd rather become an exceptional individual producer, that's equally valid.

This will suit an experienced permanent Maintenance, FM or Engineering recruiter who understands the pace and personality of blue-collar technical recruitment.

You may already recruit Maintenance Engineers, HVAC Engineers, Electricians, Controls Engineers, Fire & Security Engineers or similar technical professionals.

Equally, someone from a strong industrial or technical blue-collar permanent recruitment background could make the transition.

Whichever background you come from, you'll understand how this candidate market can be different from professional white-collar recruitment. The best recruiters know how to build genuine rapport with engineers and tradespeople, communication can be direct, informal and sometimes involve a fair amount of banter, while still being completely credible and professional when dealing with clients.

You'll also need to be commercially proactive. There is plenty of warmth around this desk, but nobody is going to hand you £250k of billings.

You'll need to follow the leads others don't have time to pursue, speak to clients about the vacancies currently going elsewhere, develop new relationships and continuously build your own candidate network.

Perhaps you're currently in a Maintenance business where internal competition has become the problem, several recruiters chasing the same candidates, clients and vacancies.

Here, it's almost the reverse. There is more market than the existing permanent resource can currently cover. That's a good problem for the next recruiter to inherit.