Founder-led, by design.
Elev8 is run by the people you actually deal with. No account managers, no handovers, no junior consultants getting their first reps on your hire.
Meet Andy.
I spent ten years selling things before I ever recruited anyone. Cars, insurance, cybersecurity. I knew how to handle a deal, how to read a buyer, and how to keep going when the answer was no. What I did not know, when I joined Cooper Lomas in 2017, was the first thing about engineering recruitment.
I learned. Fast. My first desk was Design Engineering across Norfolk and Suffolk and I was determined to be good at it because I had a wife and daughter at home and a lot to prove. By the end of year one I was placing engineers I had no business understanding when I started. By year three I knew the difference between a CAD Engineer and a Mechanical Design Engineer, between a Project Engineer and a Project Manager, and which clients valued which.
I started Elev8 because I had seen how engineering recruitment was done and I knew there was a better way to do it.
That was nearly ten years ago. I am still hands-on. Every spec comes through me. Every shortlist I have an opinion on. Clients come back because they know who they are dealing with and they know I will tell them the truth about their hire, even when it is not the answer they wanted.
Meet Sam.
Sam is a Recruitment Consultant at Elev8 and he is also my oldest friend. We have known each other for nearly 25 years, grew up together, and now run a business together. That is unusual and it is worth saying.
It works because the trust between us is already built. Nothing falls through the cracks between consultants here because there is no politics, no internal competition, and no second guessing. If Sam picks up the phone to a candidate I have placed before, the handover is seamless. If I pass him a search, I know it will be done properly.
Sam runs candidate-side delivery and is increasingly involved in client work too. Between us, every spec has two pairs of eyes on it.
Why Elev8 exists.
Most engineering hiring problems are not talent shortages. They are clarity and delivery problems. Specs are too vague, expectations are unrealistic, and recruiters fire CVs at the wall hoping something sticks. By the time the wrong hire has come and gone, the project is six months late and the hiring manager is back at square one.
Elev8 exists to do this differently. We work with manufacturing SMEs across the UK, in two specialisms only: Design Engineering and Project Engineering. We headhunt rather than advertise. We push back on specs that will not work. We send shortlists that make sense. We do not pretend to do things we are not good at.
That is it. There is no clever positioning, no growth-stage VC narrative, no hundred-strong team with a regional structure. There is Andy, there is Sam, and there is a small list of clients we have worked with for years who do not need to explain themselves twice.
What we will not do.
We will not run a search we cannot deliver.
If your salary is wrong for the market, we will tell you before we take the job. If your spec is unrealistic, we will say so on the first call. We would rather lose the brief than waste your time and ours.
We will not pass you to a junior.
You get Andy on every brief. Sam supports. There is no third tier, no overflow team, no regional office handing your search to someone you have never met.
We will not chase you for the sake of activity.
We are not interested in being your fifth recruiter on a job. If you want six agencies racing to the same shortlist, we are the wrong fit. If you want one specialist who knows your sector, we are worth a conversation.