Site manager recruitment in the UK still starts in the wrong room. Someone writes an advert. A desk turns the advert into a filter. A folder arrives, every PDF saying “site manager” in a large font. You then spend evenings discarding people who have never held a live programme, do not hold the ticket, or would not be allowed through the gate. That is a CV filter. It is not a site search.
VS Recruitment works the other way. Viktorija Sherriff headhunts. She opens a named search for a £450 engagement fee and works her own network — construction, facilities, site and project management, property. She does not scrape job boards. She does not spray CVs because a headline matched. The person who can run your site is usually already running someone else’s. They take a call. They do not apply to a generic vacancy.
The broader case against volume hiring is in construction recruitment that starts on site. This piece is narrower: site manager recruitment as a search for a person who can actually hold a site.
A CV filter cannot see the site
A PDF is a claim. A site is a set of facts. New-build is not occupied refurbishment. A programme that still has to trade is not a green-field plot with a hoarding and a welfare cabin. A site manager who has run a housing phase for a regional contractor is not interchangeable with someone who has run a city-centre fit-out in a live building. Volume desks flatten those differences because flattening is fast.
The hiring pain is rarely “we cannot find CVs”. It is that the CVs all look plausible. Site manager recruitment rewards tidy headlines. The work rewards people who are still there at the back end of a programme, who can hold a subcontractor, and who do not need a translator in a progress meeting. Those people are usually in post. They are not refreshing a job board at lunchtime.
A filter asks whether the words match. A site search asks whether this person has held this type of site, with this kind of pressure, and whether they would still make sense after the first bad week.
What “running the site” actually means
Write the Tuesday, not the title. Who do they sit with. What has to be true in six weeks for you to call this a success. Is this a main-contractor seat or a client-side construction manager wearing a site-manager label. Does the role need someone who has already run live works, or are you hoping a strong deputy will “step up” on your programme. Be honest in the brief. Viktorija will be honest back.
Where the role needs it, CSCS is not a keyword. It is a condition of being on site. SMSTS is the sort of ticket you check for a manager who claims to run live works, rather than admire on a PDF. Neither is a substitute for judgement. Both are the floor. Built sector recruitment at VS Recruitment is built on that distinction: credentials the role actually needs, not a match against a Boolean string.
CDM 2015 is the legal floor. It is not the recruiter’s job.
Health and safety duties on a construction project sit with the client and the other dutyholders. They are not outsourced to a headhunter. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 set those duties in law. See the CDM 2015 text on legislation.gov.uk and the HSE construction pages, including the CDM 2015 guidance.
VS Recruitment will not pretend to be your CDM adviser. What Viktorija will not do is treat a missing ticket as a paperwork detail to be “picked up later”. A contractor must not employ or appoint a person to work on a construction site unless that person has, or is in the process of obtaining, the necessary skills, knowledge, training and experience. That duty is in the regulations. A CV filter does not discharge it.
Every UK employer also has to check that a successful applicant has the right to work. That duty is the employer’s. The process is on GOV.UK: check a job applicant’s right to work. A careful search does not treat it as a surprise at offer stage.
The people you want are already on a site
Good site managers are not “available” in the sense a database means available. They are on a programme. They might be quietly open to a better brief. They will not apply to an advert that could have been written for any contractor in the country, because applying is a signal and they are not looking for a signal.
A network is not a secret list of unemployed people. It is a set of relationships built over a decade in the built sector — including the years Viktorija spent as head of recruitment for a national facilities business, hiring site managers, fire risk assessors, and contract and facilities leaders. When a search opens, she calls people she can already reach. She describes the brief without turning it into an advertisement.
Because nothing is posted on a job board, you can hire discreetly. The market does not see a vacancy with your name on it. People are approached one conversation at a time. For a site manager still in post, that is often the only way the conversation happens at all.
What the £450 search is for
£450 is an engagement fee. It opens a named search. It is not a listing charge and it is not payment for a batch of unsolicited CVs. If the brief is a fit, Viktorija starts work: mapping who she can reach, approaching people quietly, protecting your name until there is a reason to share it. You meet a shortlist she is prepared to stand behind.
If the brief is not a fit — wrong sector, a role she cannot honestly reach, a process that only wants volume by Friday — she will say so before anyone pays. Site manager recruitment is not improved by pretending every vacancy is the same.
Project managers sit next to this search when they still know what a site looks like on a Tuesday. Facilities manager recruitment is a different brief: the building as an operating asset, not a construction phase. Fire risk assessors are another search entirely; see built sector recruitment. Soft-FM operatives exist in the network. A named £450 search is for the person who runs the work, not for filling a rota.
A short note is enough. The role. The site or programme. What “good” looks like on a Tuesday. Whether this has to stay discreet. Start a search. Site manager recruitment is a site search. Treat it like one.
Frequently asked questions
What is site manager recruitment if it is not a job-board search?
A named search for a person who has held a live site of the type you actually have. Viktorija headhunts through her network. She does not scrape job boards and she does not send a folder of people whose CV says “site manager”.
Do you check CSCS and SMSTS?
Where the role needs them, yes — checked, not assumed from a CV line. They are not a substitute for the legal duties under CDM 2015. Those duties sit with the employer and the dutyholders. See the HSE construction pages and CDM 2015. VS Recruitment is a headhunter, not a health and safety adviser.
Can you hire a site manager discreetly?
Yes. Roles are not advertised on job boards. People are approached through the network, one conversation at a time. Your name stays quiet until there is a reason to share it.
What does the £450 fee buy?
It opens a named search. It is not a listing charge and it is not payment for unsolicited CVs. If the brief is not a fit, she will say so before anyone pays. How it works is the fuller model.
Do you also recruit facilities managers and fire risk assessors?
Yes. Both sit in built sector recruitment. They are not the same brief as a site manager. A facilities manager runs a building as an operating asset. A fire risk assessor produces a suitable and sufficient assessment.
Is right to work part of the search?
The check is the employer’s duty. The process is on GOV.UK. A careful search does not treat it as a surprise at offer stage.