Executive & Technology Search · London
Specialist recruiters for scaling technology teams. Pre-vetted candidates, a transparent process with a clock on it, and a replacement guarantee on every placement.
Now shortlisting
Head of Platform Engineering · Series C fintech · £120k · Hybrid, London
Search partner to talent-led teams
Two front doors
For employers
One consultant owns your search end to end. You see a calibrated longlist by day three and an interview-ready shortlist by day eleven, on average.
For candidates
We represent a small number of senior people at a time, so when we call about a role, it is because you are genuinely right for it.
Where we search
Every consultant recruits one market only, so they know the people worth calling before your brief lands.
How a search runs
Averages across the last 200 searches. You see the same timeline, with dates, in your kickoff pack.
Day 0
A working session on the role, the team and the real bar. You leave with a scorecard and live salary data for the market you are hiring in.
Day 3
Ten to twelve profiles to react to. Thirty minutes of your feedback here saves weeks of interviewing the wrong shape of person.
Day 11
Four or five interview-ready candidates. Vetted across five stages, briefed on your company and available on dates that suit your panel.
Day 30
We handle benchmarking, counter-offers and notice periods. That is why 92% of the offers our clients make get accepted.
The guarantee: if a placement leaves inside their guarantee period, we re-run the search free. In eleven years, we have honoured it 31 times out of 1,400 placements.
Written into every terms
Live briefs
Most of our searches are confidential and never advertised. If nothing here fits, register anyway.
4 of 23 open briefs shown
What clients say
“Every agency says they vet people. Ascend are the first whose shortlist proved it. We hired two of the five and would have taken a third.”
Laura BennettCOO, Hatchwork · 3 searches with Ascend“Three shortlisted, three interviewed, one hired. Twenty-six days door to door for a role we had been running ourselves for four months.”
“They told me not to take a role they were being paid to fill, because it was wrong for me. I took the next one they called about. Still there.”
Start a conversation
Send the role, or half an idea of it. A sector consultant will come back within one working day with a timeline and a fee, in writing.
Send a CV or a LinkedIn profile, confidentially. If we cannot help, we will say so straight away rather than sit on it.