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| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| ISIN | GB0004161021  |
| Industry | Recruitment |
| Founded | 1867[1] |
| Headquarters | London,England |
Key people | Andrew Martin,Chairman Dirk Hahn,CEO James Hilton, Group Finance Director |
| Revenue |  £6,607.0 million (2025)[2] |
| £45.6 million (2025)[2] | |
| £(7.8) million (2025)[2] | |
Number of employees | 10,393 (2025)[2] |
| Website | www |
Hays plc is a Britishmultinational company providingrecruitment andhuman resources services across 33 countries globally. It is listed on theLondon Stock Exchange and is a constituent of theFTSE 250 Index.[3]
The company was founded in 1867 as an operator of wharves and warehouses on the south bank of theRiver Thames.[1] The name can be traced to Alexander Hay, who acquired a brewhouse there in 1651. It was redeveloped as a 'wharf', in fact an enclosed dock, in 1856 and renamed Hay's Wharf. It was rebuilt after the1861 Tooley Street fire and still stands; it was converted in the 1980s into a shopping andrestaurant area known asHay's Galleria.[4]
TheKuwait Investment Authority acquired an indirect 34% holding in the company in 1975, increased to 100% in 1980,[1] chiefly to acquire the property assets on the south bank of the Thames, which were sold toSt Martins Property Group in the early 1980s.[5]
To develop the management team for the services group,[5] the Kuwaitis backed Hays' acquisition of Farmhouse Securities, a food distribution business owned by Ronnie Frost, and Hays then moved into chemical distribution, commercial distribution and office support services with Frost and Peter Roberts as directors.[6] In 1986, it purchased a personnel business called Career Care Group, which had been founded by Dennis Waxman.[7] Hays was also growing its business storage services which included the brands "Hays Wharf" and "Rentacrate". In 1987, a long-plannedmanagement buyout was completed,[5] and the company launched aninitial public offering in 1989.[1] Ronnie Frost managed the combined services group from 1987 until he retired in 2001.[6]
In March 2003, Hays announced that, following a strategic review, it intended to reposition itself purely as a specialist recruitment business and that the company would dispose of all non-core business, including its commercial and logistics operations.[6] Following Hays' change of focus to a recruitment company, Denis Waxman became CEO in July 2004.[7] In November 2004 Hays de-merged itsDX delivery network which represented the final step in the transformation of Hays into a recruitment business.[8] In November 2007 Waxman retired and was succeeded by Alistair Cox.[9]
Hays is a specialist recruitment group with operations in theUK andIreland,Continental Europe (in Germany pronounced Hei(s), as health=Hei(l)), theAmericas andAsia Pacific regions.[10] It has a fairly equal balance of work in temporary and permanent recruitment, which contributes to financial stability through business cycles.[11] Hays operates in 33 countries.[12]
In 2009 theOffice of Fair Trading imposed a £30.4m fine against Hays for its involvement inprice-fixing. The firm, along with five other recruitment firms, formed acartel called the Construction Recruitment Forum which agreed to boycott Parc, a new company that had entered the market in 2003 to act as an intermediary betweenconstruction firms and recruitment firms. The six firms received fines totalling £39.3m, Hays receiving the biggest fine.[13] Hays had its fine cut by the Competition Appeal Tribunal from £30.4m to £5.9m following an appeal against the level of a fine imposed by the Office of Fair Trading in September 2009.[14]
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