A Brief History
Our Timeline
Our journey was started in a small office above a dress shop in Birmingham, by founder Constance Watts.
From humble beginnings, our expertise and performance grew and so did our branch network, enabling us to diversify and adapt, providing recruitment services across a variety of sectors.
To this day, the strong family values of the Watts family live on, as we continue to recruit and promote a socially responsible culture while supporting our local communities.
Steve West, CEO
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1961
Founder Constance Watts opens a small office above a dress-shop in Temple Street, Birmingham.
She specialises, at first, in secretarial recruitment and takes on a single employee to assist her, concentrating on managing the work lives of a mere 15 (female) candidates.
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1970
Constance’s son, Tim Watts, joins the business opening a second office in Wolverhampton.
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1979
Technical Network, the first network group company opens its doors, specialising in manufacturing and engineering .
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1980
Won by Carmen Watson, Chair of Pertemps Network Group, Pertemps receives their first fully outsourced contract with Mercury Communications, which requires the filling of no fewer than 360 vacancies – a very tall order considering the corporate team have no office, no phone-lines, no staff and no resources – with only four days until the project begins. (by the way, we nailed it!)
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1989
Pertemps advertises all their jobs in the Daily News every month.
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1993
We won our first blue collar onsite at Woolworths.
Our onsite manager was a young man named Steve West who is today our CEO.
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1994
Tim Watts creates the Employee Benefit Trust
By offering our employees a genuine stake in the business, Tim Watts strongly believes that our people will be more motivated and dedicated to their roles. Especially if, as a shareholder, the value of those shares increase as a direct result of your own hard work.
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1994
Tim Watts launches a Pertemps Lottery for its temporary workers, the same year The National Lottery begins.
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1997
We won Investors in People accreditation for the first time.
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1999
We signed our first two managed service contracts with GIST and National Grid.
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2006
This was the first year we entered and won a place on the Sunday Times list, officially ranking Pertemps as a 'Top 100 Employer' in the UK
It has featured in the list every year since, the only recruitment firm to do so and one of only four companies in total ever to achieve this tenth year running!
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2010
We became the largest supplier of temporary drivers in the UK (we were already raising concerns about the future skills shortages, even then).
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2010
Pertemps Scotland received the best service awards at the Go Awards.
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2012
Pertemps merge with Network Group to form the UK’s largest privately owned recruitment agency
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2014
Always striving to be part of the solution we launched the Pertemps Driving Academy to help address the national shortage of drivers.
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2016
The Armed Forces Liaison team received the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award for employee engagement, validating our programme aimed at helping ex-service leavers to find new career paths.
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2017
Pertemps Managed Solutions won the Recruiter Awards for 'Outstanding Outsourced Recruitment Organisation'. In the same year we also won the 'most effective team motivation event' award.
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2018
Carmen Watson was named Director of the year in the West Midlands by the Institute of Directors
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2018
Pertemps Driver Training named as Driver training provider of the year at the Talent and Logistics awards.
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2019
Our Greenford office was named the best temporary recruitment agency at the Recruiter Awards.
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2020
We won the Most Effective Business Continuity & Resilience Programme Award at the Recruiter Investing in Talent Awards.
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2021
Pertemps celebrates 60 years in business.
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2022
We placed 32nd in the list of Best Large Companies to work for in the UK, the highest placed recruitment firm. We also ranked 4th in Scotland and 9th in the West Midlands in the regional lists.
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2023
Pertemps launched its D&I commitments document, outlining ambitions for continuous improvement and ensuring a positive experience for all employees, regardless of background, identity or personal circumstances.
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2024
Pertemps, in collaboration with The Purpose Coalition, launched the Workforce of the Future report which highlights the necessity for more collaborative efforts to bridge skills gaps and remove barriers to employment.