Across engineering and manufacturing, organisations are facing one of the most pressing talent challenges in decades. Skilled engineers are in short supply, competition is fierce, time-to-hire is increasing, and traditional recruitment routes are producing weaker candidate pools than ever before.
This isn’t just an HR headache.
It’s a critical business risk.
Engineering functions are struggling with unfilled vacancies, operational delays and teams stretched to breaking point. HR teams face relentless demand, rising recruitment spend and diminishing returns from job boards and multi-agency PSL models.
The landscape has fundamentally shifted.
So the hiring model must shift with it.
Tiro’s exclusive partner model has been built specifically for businesses navigating these pressures , providing a strategic, data-led, high‑performance hiring engine designed for today’s scarce skills market.
Why Traditional Engineering Recruitment No Longer Works
Five structural changes in the labour market have made traditional PSL recruitment unfit for purpose:
- A shrinking pool of experienced engineers
Retirements are accelerating, and there simply aren’t enough new entrants to replace them.
- Increasing competition across industries
Logistics, automation, renewables and data centres are all targeting the same engineering talent — often paying more.
- The active candidate market is tiny
Only an estimated 4% of engineers are actively applying for jobs at any given time.
Job adverts and multi-agency PSLs are all fighting over the same applicants.
- PSL agencies split their focus
They represent multiple companies — including your competitors — and prioritise whichever role pays quickest or easiest to fill.
- Time-to-hire and turnover are rising
Businesses are making compromise hires under pressure, and those hires often fail to stay long term.
The result is predictable:
- Weaker shortlists
- Longer vacancy periods
- Higher engineering team strain
- Increased costs
- Lower retention
This is why organisations are now turning to a new model.
The Tiro Solution: An Exclusive, Strategic, High‑Performance Hiring Partnership
Tiro rejects the traditional agency model and instead provides an exclusive headhunting partnership aligned entirely to your business — not a shared PSL. Our approach is built on five pillars:
- Exclusivity
We work solely for your organisation within the agreed engineering scope.
This gives you ethical access to all competitor talent pools, without conflict of interest.
- Risk‑evaluated workforce strategy
We analyse your engineering structure, turnover, skill gaps and succession risks — both planned and unplanned — to forecast hiring needs and avoid last-minute recruitment fires.
- Structured hiring, governed by KPIs and SLAs
This ensures predictable, high-quality, repeatable performance, including:
- Standardised job briefings
- Skills‑matrix‑based screening
- Consistent assessment methodology
- Structured interview preparation
- Managed onboarding and compliance
- Weekly priority reviews
- Monthly data reporting
- Continuous improvement cycles
This transforms recruitment from transactional to strategic.
- A dedicated account team fully aligned to your business
Your team may include:
- An Account Director
- Senior Delivery Consultants
- Dedicated Resourcers
- Scalable support from both Tiro Associates and Tiro Contracts
This structure can comfortably support high‑volume concurrent engineering vacancies across multiple locations.
- Active headhunting, not passive advertising
We proactively source from the entire market:
- Passive engineers
- Competitor sites
- Local talent clusters
- Under-the-radar talent
- High‑value specialists who never apply to adverts
Every conversation positions your organisation as the employer of choice — strengthening employer brand and candidate engagement throughout the process.
Why Engineering & HR Leaders Prefer This Model
For Engineering Directors:
- Better quality engineers
- Faster hiring
- Reduced downtime
- Talent pipelines for hard‑to‑fill roles
- Improved succession planning
- More stable team structures
- Lower turnover due to better skills matching
For HR Directors:
- Single‑point accountability
- Reduced management burden
- Fully managed candidate journey
- Consistent processes across all sites
- Access to market intelligence & salary benchmarking
- Transparent reporting and predictable costs
This is not agency recruitment. It is a strategic partnership.
Fully Managed Implementation
Tiro’s onboarding includes:
- Stakeholder meetings
- A full talent audit
- Implementation of agreed KPIs
- Standardised candidate documentation packs
- Training for hiring managers
- ATS integration
- Weekly prioritisation meetings
- Structured reporting dashboards
This creates a unified recruitment engine across all engineering hiring activity.
A Pricing Model Designed for High-Volume Engineering Recruitment
Tiro’s Cost & Volume model is built to reward partnership — reducing the effective cost per hire while enabling Tiro to resource appropriately for high performance.
The structure includes:
- Tiered fee reductions as hiring volumes increase
- Retrospective rebates once milestones are achieved
- A blended cost target that significantly outperforms typical engineering PSL rates
This delivers two major benefits:
Lower overall cost per hire
Partnership = efficiency = savings.
Higher-quality appointments
Better hires = lower turnover = additional financial gain.
The Future of Engineering Hiring Requires a New Model
The traditional recruitment landscape cannot solve today’s engineering talent crisis.
But a strategic, exclusive partnership can.
Tiro’s approach gives organisations:
- Access to the entire engineering labour market
- Faster, higher-quality hiring
- Reduced turnover
- Lower cost per hire
- Stronger employer branding
- A stable long-term talent pipeline
- Data-led decision making
- A scalable recruitment engine
- A single partner accountable for delivery
Tiro builds the engineering workforce you can’t secure through a PSL.
If you’re ready to move from reactive hiring to strategic talent control, we can show you how.
