Reed was founded on 7th May 1960, with the first office located on Kingsley Rd, Hounslow (West London). In the early 1960s REED pioneered specialist recruitment services; a move which fundamentally changed the UK recruitment market.
The Reed group
In the early 1960s, Reed pioneered specialist recruitment in the UK. Seven decades on, we have become the world’s largest family-run recruitment business, with offices spanning across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia.
With access to largest international candidate databases and expertise across 20 specialist sectors worldwide, we are committed to ensuring that people are at the heart of everything we do to ensure we fulfil our purpose: improving lives through work.
Our companies:
The largest family-run recruitment company in the world, and a pioneer of specialist recruitment services. We work with more than 30,000 organisations in the to fill their temporary, permanent and interim positions for 20 sectors.
Reed.co.uk is one of the UK’s leading career marketplaces, connecting people to a world of career opportunities online. As well as jobs, Reed.co.uk offers courses and career advice. For recruiters and employers, it provides job advertising, a CV database with over 22 million candidates, plus recruiter advice and news.
Reed Talent Solutions helps you navigate a complex workforce environment by working with you to design and deliver recruitment solutions at scale to help your business grow. Our digital solutions provide measurable benefits, so you can ultimately save time, money and above all, ensure you’re hiring the best talent for your organisation.
When it comes to employee screening, we take care of your employment background checks. Reed Screening combines extensive experience with a comprehensive list of checks. The service is available 24 hours, seven days a week and, with a fast-track service, Reed Screening can produce results in hours, not days - so you can make the right hiring choices fast.
Reed Courses is an online platform dedicated to helping you upskill and develop personally or professionally through the right learning opportunity. It is one of the UK’s fastest-growing course marketplaces, with 40,000 courses to choose from and covering over 726 different subjects, from higher education courses, CPD points to professional certifications.
Reed Learning is dedicated to delivering high-quality training and professional development for your business or organisation. We make employee learning simple and effective with curated learning packages, a breadth of digital and in-person learning products, and tailored advice to help you find the right solution for your business.
Established in 1972, the Reed Business School is a UK centre of excellence for professional qualification tuition and boasts pass rates far above the national average. We specialise in finance and accountancy qualifications and focus on helping to equip our students with not only the skills and knowledge to achieve their professional qualifications, but create a unique and comfortable learning environment.
At Reed Professional Services we specialise in developing partnerships with clients to provide clear solutions and specialist technical expertise with the help of our management consultancy and technology services providers. We assist both private and public sector organisations in saving millions of pounds and ultimately deliver big and small projects on time and on budget.
Reed in Partnership’s mission is to positively transform people and their communities. We provide a range of public services that help people to change their lives for the better, including support with employment, health, skills, justice, assessments and youth development.
Reed Wellbeing's objective is to help businesses create healthy workplaces and support employee and community wellbeing. With the knowledge and data delivered by our products, we can aid your company in getting a clearer insight into health trends and risks and provide important guidance on how you can successfully address these, so you can have healthier and happier employees.
In 2021 we introduced Reed Franchise Partnerships, an exciting opportunity to bring international franchisees into our Reed family. After many years of establishing ourselves as an international community of recruitment experts, we want to help others use the Reed name to build their own business, with the help of our infrastructure, tools, and resources that can help them accelerate to success.
The Reed Foundation is a charity set up by the founder of Reed, Sir Alec Reed in 1972. Over the past 10 years, the foundation has donated over £9.5 million to a wide variety of charities from a multitude of sectors, including environment and social mobility organisations here in the UK. Its purpose is to give back to the communities we work in and inspire a tradition of charitable giving as a company and with our co-members.
The history of Reed
1960
Humble Beginnings
1972
Educate to Accumulate
Sir Alec Reed founded the Reed Business School in a Cotswolds manor house to provide a learning centre for Reed Co-Members as well as residential courses for accountancy students. The Reed Business School has even been listed as one of the most beautiful places to study in the world.
1988
Building the Foundation
The Reed Foundation acquired 18% of the Reed Group of companies and, in the following year, founded both Ethiopiaid and Womankind Worldwide.
1995
Online Revolution
Reed became the first high street recruitment agency in the UK to have a presence on the web. reed.co.uk is the UK’s #1 job site and has also become one of Europe’s biggest job boards, being used by 85% of the UK’s top 100 recruitment agencies.
1996
Reed Learning
In 1996, Reed Learning became one of the UK’s leading business training providers. It was the first provider to launch green learning courses, become an exclusive training partner to Google and winner of several national training awards. Now, Reed.co.uk is home to thousands of online learning courses.
1998
Welfare to work
Established in 1998, Reed in Partnership was one of the first employment support service providers in the UK, with a single office in Hackney. Today, Reed in Partnership offers services throughout the UK, fulfilling its mission: to positively transform people’s lives and their communities.
2007
The Big Give
The Big Give is a non-profit, match funding platform that allows charities to double donations from supporters. Since its launch in 2007, it has raised over £156 million for thousands of great causes through the power of match funding.
2008
Reed goes global
In 2008 the organic growth of Reed, meant taking our family values global. For the first time ever, we opened international Reed offices in Turkey, Malta, Czech Republic, Hungary and South Korea.
2020
60 years and counting
In May 2020 Reed turned 60 years old. With 60 years under our belt and many more to go, we continue to lead the way with the best recruitment solutions and comprehensive industry knowledge. Over the last seven decades, Reed has organically grown to become one of the world’s largest recruitment powerhouses, having built an incredibly strong team of over 3,400 co-members across a number of locations.
2021
Reed Franchise Partnerships
This year we have launched our latest venture. Reed Franchise Partnerships' purpose is to share knowledge and experience with partners further afield. With the help of our experienced team members, our new international partners are starting out on recruitment journeys which we hope are as long and fruitful as Reed’s.