Reed is an employment agency based in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1960 by Sir Alec Reed CBE. Reed's son, James Reed CBE, is the current chairman and Chief Executive.
The company's website, reed.co.uk, was established in 1995 was the UK's first employment website. In 2014, Alexa ranked reed.co.uk as the UK's largest employment agency website. Reed Specialist Recruitment is listed in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league of Britain's largest private companies. Reed offers training, outsourcing and HR consultancy services.
In 2023 Reed reported annual revenue of £1.2 billion. In 1985, 18% of the company was donated to the Reed Foundation, the Reed family's philanthropic arm. The Foundation created and continues to sponsor The Big Give, one of the UK's largest philanthropic endeavours.
Reed Group companies
Reed Group has 3500 employees across 350 business units and 180 locations worldwide, dealing in 30 recruitment specialisms. Its headquarters and the majority of its operations are in the UK, alongside offices in the Middle East, Asia and continental Europe.
The company has three main divisions:
Reed Specialist Recruitment
Reed Specialist Recruitment provides employment services for permanent, contract, temporary and outsourced jobs, as well as IT and HR consultancy. Industry specialisms include accountancy, banking and finance, office support, education, health and care, HR, management procurement, science, technology, hospitality and leisure. It also offers postgraduate study programmes, business training and personal development courses.
Reed Online Ltd
Reed.co.uk is one of the UK's largest recruitment sites. Its featured jobs come from employers, recruitment agencies and Reed consultants. The site reports receiving approximately 4 million job applications per month, through 14,000 registered recruiters. It also claims a database of 12 million jobseekers worldwide, gathered through online registrations and the Reed office network. The website Reedglobal.com offers jobs across industry sectors world-wide. In 2018 the firm began a partnership with Google to integrate its vacancies into search results. Reed Online's managing director is Simon Wingate.
Reed in Partnership
Reed in Partnership is dedicated to assisting unemployed individuals in their transition from welfare to employment. Established in 1998 as part of the Blair Government's New Deal Programme, this division has since enabled more than 250,000 people to secure employment and currently employs over 2,500 staff. Reed in Partnership is a former partner to the UK's National Citizen Service.
Reed Environment is a Reed in Partnership initiative aimed at boosting Britain's net-zero skills base. Launched in July 2023, the project is establishing a number of Energy Academies across the UK by 2025, providing essential skills training for assessors and installers of net-zero technologies, such as solar power, electric vehicles, and heat pumps. Additionally, the academies will offer job opportunities, energy advice, and consultancy solutions related to retrofitting homes for energy efficiency. The initiative commenced with Reed's strategic investment in the Oxford Energy Academy, an OFSTED-recognized training provider.
History
1960–1971
Aged 26, Reed opened the first branch of Reed Employment on 7 May 1960 located on Kingsley Road, Hounslow, in West London, with £75 taken from his Gillette pension fund. The firm then expanded to a second branch in Feltham and ten more branches over the next three years. In the early 1960s, most employment agencies were located in first or second floor offices. Copying the example of rival Alfred Marks, Reed began moving his offices to ground floor locations on main shopping streets.
1971 flotation
The end of the 1960s saw a bull market in UK share prices, prompting stock market flotations by a number of rival employment agencies, including Brook Street Bureau and Alfred Marks.