STRONG YEAR: Paul Rayner, Oakstone International Chief Executive Officer, has overseen record annual growth at the Poole-based Software and FinTech executive recruitment consultancy

Expanding global software and fintech executive recruitment consultancy Oakstone International has reported a record 61 per cent growth in revenue year-on-year.

The long-established business, headquartered in Poole, Dorset also increased global hires for clients by 41 per cent over 2021.

Oakstone’s financial technology (FinTech) software division has seen growth of 50 per cent over the last six months and five new starters are joining the business this month.

Such rapid growth has prompted the consultancy to create for the first time a new position dedicated to recruiting solely for in-house roles, in the Dorset area.

Founded by current Chief Executive Officer Paul Rayner in 1995, Oakstone is an executive search firm delivering recruitment solutions to software, technology, telecoms and mobile communications sectors globally.

He puts the growth down to a combination of things – including Oakstone’s dedicated team of hard-working professionals, diversification into new fields and companies now investing much more in technology post-covid.

UK job vacancies soar to a record high of 1.24 million

Oakstone’s results come as the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show UK job vacancies soaring to a record high of 1.24 million, 462,000 higher than immediately before the pandemic, with the unemployment rate down to 4.1 per cent.

Paul said: “We have been on a very strong revenue growth trajectory for some years, growing at between 10 and 20 per cent a year, and we expect this pattern to now continue.

“We have reached a point where our profitability means we can invest in our growth – so this is being accelerated.

“We have got a great quality team. The calibre of our team members and their level of experience and their continually growing networks is the reason we are as good as we are at what we do. They do such a good job in reaching people.

“We are also extremely focused on caring about people in the company, our clients and our candidates, which may be considered unusual in recruitment, but stands us in good stead and is very much our ethos.”

This is evidenced by the firm’s four divisional directors Tristan Heywood, Steve Farr, Andy Strong and Dan Hammond-Smith having a collective 80 years of service.

Now with 26 staff and working with around 50 companies globally, Oakstone is based at the Arena Business Centre in Poole, with another office in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, where the business was first established.

Seventy per cent of Oakstone’s work is recruiting sales people, pre-sales people, semi-technical people and, now, ‘customer success people’ who make sure customers get the best out of the software they purchase

Four years ago the firm launched its Financial Technology (FinTech) software division – now eight strong – which recruits hands-on technical people, programmers and developers up to CTO level, across emerging Crypto scale ups through to established Investment Banks.

Clients are generally little-known small to medium software (SaaS) providers, mostly in the USA, seeking a sales organisation to rapidly roll out their produce across the UK and Europe.

Paul added: “They need us because no one knows who they are. They might be a really exciting young company, possibly the next big thing, and it is our role to educate candidates about this potential.

“We help facilitate expansion. We work with many of our clients for several years, often recruiting 50, 80, 100 or 150 people for them.”

Oakstone recruits globally with around 40 per cent of their people being placed in the UK, 20 per cent in Germany and 20 per cent in north America, followed by France, Scandinavia, Middle East, South Africa and the Far East.