For employers
Specialist technology recruitment agency — Oxfordshire and UK-wide
Hire the specialists others can't find.
Humand is a specialist technology recruitment agency based in Oxfordshire, hiring across software and AI, data, quantum and photonics, advanced engineering and life-sciences technology for employers throughout the UK. We work permanent, contract and retained leadership mandates, and searches are headhunted through our own network rather than only advertised.
Before you brief anyone
Three things worth knowing first.
Free, no signup, and they run in your browser. Use them before you talk to us — or instead of it, if that is what the answer says.
Rated by the people we place and the teams we place them with.
5.0· 121 Google reviewsWhy Humand
Built for roles the generalists miss.
Headhunted, not just advertised
Most of the people we place aren't actively looking. We map the market and approach them directly.
Curated shortlists
Usually 3–5 candidates worth meeting, not a CV avalanche. If we can't deliver, we say so early.
A community, not a database
We invest in the technology and talent communities year-round — so relationships exist long before a role does.
See the communities we supportWhere we hunt
Sectors we know cold.
Software, data & AI
The teams building and running the product.
Photonics, quantum & scientific systems
Physics-heavy hardware, where the candidate pool is small and mostly not looking.
Engineering & hardware
The disciplines that turn a prototype into something manufacturable.
Life-sciences technology
Technical hiring where the product is regulated.
Leadership & commercial
Senior technical leadership, and the commercial roles around a technical business.
Ready to start?
Book a call or send us a brief.
Two paths to the same shortlist — pick whichever fits how the role is scoped today.
How we help
Services built for technical hiring.
What we are working on now
Live technical searches.
A sample of the roles currently open. If yours looks like one of these, we already know the market for it.
Common questions
What employers ask us first.
- What kind of recruitment agency is Humand?
- Humand is a specialist technology recruitment agency. We recruit technical and scientific people across software, AI and data, quantum and photonics, advanced engineering, life-sciences technology and the leadership above them. Technology and scientific hiring is our core specialism, while we also support selected commercial, sales and operations searches for the same clients through the wider Humand group, including Adroit Staffing.
- Which sectors and roles do you recruit for?
- Sixteen sectors, grouped into five practices on this page, each with its own page setting out the roles and skills we cover. If a role sits between two of them, that is usually a good sign it is one of ours.
- Do you handle permanent, contract and leadership hiring?
- Yes — all three, and they are genuinely different services rather than the same process priced differently. Permanent and contract recruitment each have their own page, and senior technical leadership runs as a retained or exclusive search with a defined package.
- Are you Oxfordshire-only, or UK-wide?
- Humand is based in Oxfordshire and the community programme is rooted there, but we recruit for employers across the UK. Where a role is remote or hybrid, the location that matters is the one the client will actually accept.
- What does “headhunted, not just advertised” actually mean?
- Most of the people worth hiring for a specialist role are not reading job adverts. So the search starts from a map of who does the work, and those people are approached directly. Advertising is one route into a search, not the search itself.
- How do the technology communities help a hire?
- Humand runs and supports technology communities in Oxford and beyond, year-round and independently of any live vacancy. The value is not a mailing list — it is that the relationships and the market knowledge exist before a role does, which is what makes a direct approach land.
- How do I start a search?
- Send a brief, or book a call if the role is still being scoped. Either way you speak to a consultant who recruits in that market, not an account manager.