17TH SEPTEMBER 2026


THE LONDON BUSINESS GUIDE AN ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE DISTRIBUTED WITH


HR & Recruitment 15


The cost of the wrong hire


Employment Hero's UK MD, Kevin Fitzgerald, outlines why new employment rules could make hiring harder for small businesses


After months of turbulence, something cautiously optimistic is happening across the capital. Employment Hero’s platform data, drawn from real-time records across more than 100,000 employees at SMEs, shows London employment growth reaching 2% year-on-year in March — modest, but meaningful after fl atlining at 0.1% in October 2025. But encouraging is not the same secure. Rising costs, market


as


uncertainty and the mounting complexity of employment law are giving business owners good reason to stay cautious. National Insurance contributions have risen, the Employment Rights Act has been enacted and every hiring decision carries more weight than it used to.


Getting it wrong costs Employment Hero’s research found that six in 10 business leaders say they’ve made a bad hiring decision, and the fi nancial damage associated with that is well documented. CIPD data puts the average cost of fi lling a vacancy at £6,125, rising to £19,000 for managerial roles. For an SME already absorbing higher operating costs, that’s a hit that lands hard. Beyond the money, there’s the


disruption. In a small team, one wrong hire shows up almost immediately


— in morale, in lost productivity and in a business’s attention being pulled away from growth.


A more complicated market Recent years have added a new layer of complexity. AI has changed how some people apply for jobs and businesses are now receiving double the applications they were just a few years ago. T is trend has also given birth to a new problem — ‘deepfake candidates’, AI-generated profi les and synthetic CVs. And it isn't only employers feeling


the strain. Employment Hero’s research found that one in four UK job seekers has applied to a ‘ghost job’ — a role that was never real. Both of these issues mean confi dence in the hiring process is eroding on both sides.


Beyond candidate matching Some recruitment technology addresses only a narrow version of this problem. Generic matching tools can compare a CV to a job description. What they can’t do is understand why your last strong hire worked out, or what kind of person tends to perform in your specifi c environment. Employment Hero’s Recruitment


Agent is built on diff erent foundations. Because Employment Hero manages a business’s entire employment lifecycle — HR records, performance history, workforce data — its AI has context that broader tools don’t. It isn’t


matching candidates to a job posting, it’s matching them to a real picture of how the business works, and since the AI matches candidates to verifi ed businesses on the platform, ghost jobs are mitigated. T e platform’s AI-powered


screening then handles the volume problem: every applicant goes through the same structured interview, scored consistently, free from any unconscious bias that could potentially creep into the human- led process.


The solution for a tech start-up When Extend Robotics — a London- based tech company backed by Peter Jones following an appearance on Dragons’ Den — committed to nearly doubling its headcount, the task fell to a single HR professional managing seven open roles simultaneously. Having access to Employment


Hero’s Recruitment Agent was a huge advantage. “T e Recruitment Agent gave me


back time to actually do my job. It cut my screening time by around 70% and halved the time to hire,” says Violina Stoeva, people operations manager at Extend Robotics. T at’s not a marginal gain. All


seven roles were fi lled in two months, with no agency fees or shortcuts. London’s jobs recovery has


momentum. Whether it holds will depend on businesses making better hires — and having the tools to do so.


To fi nd out how Employment Hero's AI Recruitment Agent could transform your hiring process, visit employmenthero.com/uk/products/recruitment-agent


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