H
Hexford
Director
Oxford
About Accountancy recruitment
Accountancy recruitment
with depth and rigour.
Hexford was founded in 2010 as a specialist accountancy recruitment agency. We are deliberately small, deliberately deep across accountancy disciplines, and deliberately honest with both candidates and employers — even when honesty is harder than telling people what they want to hear.
Our approach
A few principles, held seriously.
Hexford Talent was founded in 2018 after twelve years in senior recruitment leadership at established firms. The intent was simple: build a senior recruitment business that delivered the substance bigger agencies promised but rarely produced.
We have grown to three offices and roughly thirty consultants. Every one of our partners has come up through senior recruitment in a specialist discipline; every one is hands-on with active briefs. We are not a holding company, we are not run by a private-equity timer, and we have no intention of becoming either.
The work we do is mostly on the senior end — VPs, Directors, Partners, C-suite — across four practices that overlap more than they don't. We are picky about the searches we take, and we tell the truth about which ones we think will be hard.
Four principles
we hold ourselves to.
01
Sector specialist, not generalist.
We specialise in accountancy recruitment across Financial Accounting, Management Accounting, Tax Compliance, Audit & Assurance, Insolvency & Restructuring, Bookkeeping & Payroll, Forensic Accounting, and Corporate Finance. Our team comes from these disciplines. Most have done the work before recruiting for it.
02
Honest, not optimistic.
We tell employers which searches will be hard and why. We tell candidates when a role isn't right for them, even if they want it. Optimism without substance is what gives recruitment its reputation.
03
Small, not scaling.
We turn down more work than we take. The economics of senior recruitment reward depth over volume, and the work we do is too important to rush. We grow when the right people join, not when the spreadsheet says so.
04
Long-term, not transactional.
Most of our work comes from candidates we placed years ago who are now hiring, and employers we recruited into who are now hiring others. Our retention rate matters to us because it's the truest measure of whether we got it right.
By the numbers
What more than a decade of specialist accountancy recruitment looks like.
01
94%
Offer acceptance rate
02
21 days
Average time to shortlist
03
78%
Clients return within 12 months
04
£180m
Placed salary value, 2024
The team People who
Meet the full team People who
know the sector.
Questions about how we work
What makes Hexford different from other accountancy recruiters?
We're deliberately small and sector-specific. Most of our team has worked in accountancy before recruiting for it, so we understand the technical side of the roles we fill. We also turn down work that doesn't fit our expertise, which means we can go deeper on the searches we do take.
Do you only work with large accountancy firms?
No. We work with practices of all sizes, from Big Four through to boutique advisory firms and in-house finance teams. What matters to us is whether the role is senior or technical enough that our specialist knowledge adds real value.
How long does it typically take to fill a role?
It depends on the discipline and seniority, but we're honest about timelines from the start. Some searches — particularly niche tax or insolvency roles — take longer because the talent pool is smaller. We'd rather tell you that upfront than promise speed we can't deliver.
Do you work with candidates at all levels?
We focus on qualified and senior roles — typically ACA/ACCA/CIMA qualified accountants, or those with significant technical experience. The economics of specialist recruitment mean we do our best work on complex, hard-to-fill positions rather than volume hiring.
What does 'honest, not optimistic' actually mean in practice?
It means we'll tell an employer if their salary expectations are unrealistic for the market, and we'll tell a candidate if a role isn't right for them even if they want it. Short-term optimism damages long-term relationships, and most of our work comes from people we placed years ago.
Do you cover the whole UK or just Oxford?
We're based in Oxford but recruit across the UK. Most of our placements are in the South East and London, but we've worked on senior roles nationally. Geography matters less than sector fit — if it's a specialist accountancy role, we can help.
Why do you turn down work?
Because taking on searches outside our expertise — or more work than we can handle properly — leads to poor outcomes. We're not trying to be the biggest recruiter; we're trying to be the best at what we do. That means saying no when something doesn't fit.
How do you measure whether a placement was successful?
Retention. If someone we placed is still in the role two years later and performing well, we got it right. Most recruitment agencies measure speed or volume; we care more about whether the match actually worked long-term.
For employers
Send us
the brief.
Tell us what you are hiring for, why now, and where the difficulty sits. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.
For candidates
Send us
your CV.
We read every CV. A consultant from the relevant practice will be in touch within a few working days.