Intelligent People

As an expert Oxford recruitment agency, we identify and foster top professionals in Product, UX, eCommerce and Marketing. We source and recruit select C-Suite commercial leaders for thriving Oxford-based companies, supporting the growth of Oxfordshire’s most dynamic and innovative businesses.

Your Oxford recruitment partner

Our agency provides top tier recruitment solutions for Oxford and Oxfordshire-based employers. With expertise rooted in the local landscape, and strong networks throughout the product field internationally, we are your go-to source for both permanent and interim placements. We specialise in recruiting managers and leaders in life-sciences, ed-tech, and fintech, including product management, product design & UX, marketing, eCommerce, and commercial leadership roles. We have particular experience within senior placements within these domains.

Navigating the unique demands of the Oxford market, Intelligent People offers a range of specialised services that resonate with enterprise businesses and high growth start-ups and scale-ups alike. Our full cycle recruitment service ranges from employer branding consultancy, candidate attraction, localised salary benchmarking, devising targeted search and engagement strategies, and running the candidate evaluation and selection process.

Recruitment & headhunting services for Oxford's fast-growth employers

Our full end-to-end recruitment services include:

– executive search / headhunting services for senior level positions to include competitor analysis and market-mapping exercises at a local/national and international level.

– contingency hiring utilising our 35,000 strong candidate database.

– interim, contract or fractional placements across our specialist domains.

– localised advice for employers utilising market knowledge to include salary benchmarking, and full package expectations.

– end-to-end running of selection processes including shortlisting, candidate engagement, and interview preparation.

Speak to the top Oxford recruitment agency

Doug focuses on delivering executive level search campaigns for his clients. He is particularly proud that the business is the market leader in marketing, product and eCommerce – genuinely exciting areas which allow him to learn about innovative technologies every day.

Doug Bates
Co-founder, Intelligent People

Chris focuses on leading the team to success, working directly with Oxford’s employers in finding the most experienced, executive level candidates in the field. Chris gets a buzz from the work he does, solving clients’ problems and changing people’s lives by finding the perfect opportunity.

Chris Mason
Co-founder, Intelligent People

Oxford recruitment: roles we specialise in

Marketing
roles

Every product innovation needs a marketing team to take it to market fast. We recruit across all marketing disciplines, selecting candidates who understand their craft and Oxford’s world-class reputation for excellence. Ask about our personalised marketing recruitment service – sourcing highly talented, reputable, executive level marketers to further your brand.

Marketing services

Product
management

As a specialist product management recruitment agency, our Oxford consultants understand this niche employment landscape; We advise on salary expectations, expected lead times, product management trends, current technology and legality issues and more

Product management services

eCommerce
roles

As one of the UK’s leading agencies for eCommerce recruitment, we specialise in sourcing the country’s most talented eCommerce professionals, bringing them into Oxford’s top enterprise employers.

Whether you are selling services, digital or physical products, sell at scale with a new eCommerce appointment.

eCommerce services

Product design & UX

We specialise in recruiting for positions such as VP Product Design, Product Design Director, Head of UX etc. We help advise on salary expectations and the latest trends in the market, so you secure the best talent available.View Product Design & UX services

Executive
level positions

For over 20 years, we have been building relationships with brands in Oxfordshire, throughout the UK, and beyond. So we are perfectly placed to help you find your next Executive level position and to negotiate the right salary, benefits and package for you.

Executive Search

Contract/ Interim
roles

With a strong candidate network, we are known as very responsive; filling roles fast, without ever comprising on quality. We’ll also help you with all of the legal HR steps you need to take to protect your business in today’s context.View contract services

Are you looking for your ideal role in Oxford?

Are you looking for a new position at one of Oxford’s world-renowned employers, or seeking an exciting and challenging new role in an innovative, well-funded startup? From Oxfordshire to London, we are the Oxford recruitment agency to turn to.

Browse our Oxfordshire advertised openings, or read our frequently updated candidate blog for the latest information to enhance your job search, including:

How to optimise your LinkedIn profile
Preparing for an interview
Common interview questions and how to answer them
A guide to making and naviagting counter-offers
How to set a purposeful personal development plan.

Our commitment to our candidates goes beyond simply finding job placements; we aim to help them achieve their full potential by identifying their individual goals and matching them with a compatible business culture and role in which they can truly thrive. We work tirelessly to ensure that our candidates are placed in positions that align with their vision, setting them up for long-term success.

Talent is in high demand in Oxford – if you don’t see a matching role on our live jobs board, why not upload your CV and get notified of a match?

Local economy news

UK economy returns to growth in May

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.4% in May

Economists had predicted that GDP would increase by 0.2% in May. ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: “The economy grew strongly in May, with all the main sectors seeing increases.

The stronger-than-expected performance in May puts the country’s economy on track to surpass the Bank of England’s projection of 0.5% growth for the second quarter, barring a notable decline in June.

Read the full article here

Oxford employment stats

Employment, unemployment and economic activity

Oxford’s employment rate was higher than across the South East as a whole in the year ending September 2023.

Of people aged 16 to 64 years living in Oxford, 83.3% were employed in the year ending September 2023. This is an increase compared with the year ending September 2022 when the local rate was 75.7%.

Across the South East in the year ending September 2023, 78.5% of people aged 16 to 64 years were employed. This was slightly higher compared with the previous year, when 78.0% of people were employed.

Read the full article here

Oxford is home to some of the most prestigious universities and research institutions leading the way in life sciences, digital publishing, gaming, green energy, AI, UAVs and robotics.

With this backdrop, it is a nucleus of innovative, world-leading startups and businesses making rapid breakthroughs in the global economy’s fast-growing sectors.

Notable Oxfordshire employers include those across bio-medical, fintech, IT, publishing, gaming, quantum computing, such as:

Sharp Laboratories, Zynga, Rebellion gaming, Natural Motion, Veeva, Osprey Hart, BMW Mini, Centrica, Pearson Education, Oxford University Press, Quantinuum, and many, many others.

Oxford leads the way in a fast-paced world

Some of our amazing employers we recruit for

I need to hire

We deliver quickly for our employers, without ever compromising on quality.

Upload my CV

We’re experts at finding our candidates the next step in their career.

Case studies from an Oxford recruitment agency

Ben @ Amber River

‘Although there are quite a few big recruitment players within the financial services industry, we actively wanted to approach an agency with experience in other fields to give us a fresh perspective and access to a broader range of candidates.

Intelligent People did a brilliant executive search, providing a quality list of very engaged candidates to us extremely quickly. The quality of the shortlist we received is testament to the expertise and service offering within Intelligent People.‘

Read full case study

Product recruitment

‘We initially approached another recruitment professional, who recommended Chris Mason and Intelligent People to us as product management recruitment specialists. When we got in touch, I found Chris to be open and thoughtful, taking time to understand our business and its vision moving forward.

Chris provided a strong understanding of the product management recruitment market, advising us on what calibre of candidate we could secure against our budget. Chris helped to define salary expectations for the candidates, and we were clear on how we could move forward with the recruitment process.‘

Read full case study

Marketing recruitment

‘We really liked that Intelligent People had a defined recruitment process: preparation, sourcing, approaching and engagement, selection and screening, shortlist, interview, and offer. The process was thorough and gave us a good feeling from the outset that Chris and his team knew what they were doing.’

Read full case study

Employer: Andrew at Goodfellow

Our placement results do the talking

Businesses that trust us

Happy employers returning to us within a year

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Stars from Google reviews

Quality candidates on our database

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We support Tree-Nation

As a business, we pledge to to support Tree-Nation with their mission to reforest the world, planting trees to fight Climate Change.

For every candidate placement that we make, Intelligent People pledge to plant 20 trees to help:

protect biodiversity
restore forests
create jobs
support local communities

By working with us as a recruitment agency, you can build high-performance teams for your business and contribute towards Climate Change, reforestation efforts and building a more sustainable future – all at the same time.