Guide
Average executive search fees: what is typical in the UK, and why
Updated
This is the query everyone types and the one that deserves the most honest answer: there is no authoritative average, and the figures repeated online are conventions, not data.
Why we will not print an average
No UK regulator, professional body or statistical authority collects and publishes data on executive search firm fees. What circulates instead is convention: a percentage firms and clients recognise as a starting point.
Presenting that as an average would give it a precision it lacks, and set your expectations against a number nobody measured. The conventions are worth knowing, so long as they are labelled honestly.
What are typical executive search fees in the UK, by convention?
- Retained search
- Commonly quoted at around a third of the successful candidate's first-year total compensation, billed in staged instalments. Market convention only. It is negotiated on every mandate and varies with the base the percentage is applied to.
- Contingency
- Commonly quoted in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties percent of first-year salary or package, payable on appointment. Market convention only, and typically lower where a client places volume with one firm.
- Minimum fees
- Most search firms set a floor below which a percentage does not cover the cost of running a proper process. This is why the percentage model breaks down at lower salary levels and a fixed fee is often quoted instead.
What firms publish themselves bears this out. Of the 41 UK executive search and recruitment firms' pages we read on 12 October 2026, 5 print a fee percentage, between 10% and 30%, and 36 print none. Five firms is not an average for the market; it is five firms' own terms, set out row by row in our fee index.
Source: UK Executive Search Fee Index: every row, with its source
What actually moves your number
- Seniority. Board and chief executive mandates carry more stakeholder management, more discretion and more reputational exposure for the firm.
- Scarcity. A small addressable population means more research hours for the same shortlist.
- Confidentiality. Searches that cannot be advertised must be conducted entirely by direct approach, which is the expensive way to do it.
- Location and sector. A specialist regional market can be harder work than a deep London one, and specialist sector knowledge is priced.
- Guarantee and rebate terms. Longer protection with fewer exclusions is real risk carried by the firm and is reflected in the fee.
- Scope. Research only, longlist only, or full search through to onboarding support are different products with different costs.
- Volume and relationship. A firm expecting three mandates this year prices differently from one expecting a single transaction.
How to benchmark properly
- Ask three firms for written proposals against the same brief, with the same indicative package stated.
- Insist each states the base the percentage applies to, so you are comparing like with like.
- Ask each for the total estimated cost including expenses at the package you expect to agree, not just the percentage.
- Compare the guarantee and rebate terms side by side, including the exclusions.
- Then negotiate. The percentage is the most visible term and rarely the most valuable one to move.
Percentages described on this page are market convention as understood in 2026 and are clearly labelled as such. They are not standards, they are not published averages, and nobody sets or enforces them. Get written proposals for your own mandate before budgeting.