How much a recruitment website costs in the UK

The question almost every recruitment agency owner asks before anything else is what the website will cost, and it is also the question most suppliers answer last. Here is the honest version in plain numbers, so you can compare like with like.

The short answer

A simple four-page business website is built from £395. A recruitment agency website is a different, larger job: a live job board, candidate registration and CV uploads, and an integration with your recruitment software are all real work, not a theme change. The published starting price for our recruitment build is £895, and the gap is the job board and the integrations, not the page structure.

Past that, three things drive the price, in order: how many pages you need, what the site has to do, and how much is custom.

Why a recruitment site costs more than a brochure site

A brochure site describes a business. A recruitment site has to run one. The parts that add cost are the parts that do work:

A job board with search and filters. Live roles sorted by sector, salary, location and contract type, each on its own page. This is what lets your jobs appear in Google for Jobs, a free source of candidates most small agencies never use.
CV upload and candidate registration. A two-minute sign-up that sends the candidate's details and CV into your recruitment software or inbox. Registration is the real asset: an opted-in pool of candidates is worth more than any single placement.
The ATS integration. If you run Bullhorn, Vincere, JobAdder or Firefish, the site feeds it rather than replacing it. Roles sync and close themselves when filled.
Employer and consultant pages. Hiring managers and candidates want different things from the same site, so they are kept apart from the first click.

None of these are optional if the site is going to actually fill roles. That is why a recruitment build sits above a brochure build on price, and why a cheap brochure site repainted with a jobs page does not work.

The comparison that actually matters

The number on its own is misleading without the alternative. Recruitment website platforms such as Volcanic and RecruiterWeb typically charge several hundred pounds a month, forever, for a template you never own. Over three years that is well into five figures, and the site still looks like every other agency in your niche.

A build you own is a one-off cost. Changes afterwards are £25 a batch as you need them, or £95 a month if you want someone on hand for continuous updates. Most agencies are ahead within the first year, and the site is an asset rather than a subscription.

A worked example

A five-consultant agency wants a site: a home page, a jobs page with search, an employer page, consultant pages and a contact page. That is a recruitment build, not a brochure site, so it starts at £895 rather than £395. They also want the job board fed automatically from their ATS, which is quoted on the software they run. Six months later they add a second sector page and a salary guide, handled as a £25 batch.

The difference between £395 and £895 is not a markup. It is the job board, the registration flow and the integration. A site that does not have those is a brochure, and it will not fill roles.

What to ask any supplier before you sign

Does the build include the job board, or is that extra? Many quotes put the base site in the headline and the job board in the small print.
Where do CV uploads go? If the answer is not "into your software or inbox, with consent recorded", it is a contact form with a file field.
Will jobs appear in Google for Jobs? If they cannot answer, the roles will not be found.
What does a text edit cost after launch? The build price is only half the total; the change model is the other half.

For everything a recruitment agency website can include — the job board, candidate registration, consultant pages and the Google for Jobs setup — see website development for recruitment agencies. Our full pricing, with the page-count breakdown, is on the pricing page.