Astute is SIA Best Staffing Firm to Work For in the UK 2023 Grand Prize Winner
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Astute’s team had an unforgettable day on 8th March, winning the SIA Best Staffing Firm to Work For in the UK 2023 Grand Prize at the Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) awards ceremony in Miami.
This Grand Prize is a remarkable accomplishment, celebrating our commitment to employee engagement, trust, and people-focused workplace culture.
What Is the SIA Best Staffing Firm to Work For Award?
SIA is a global advisor on staffing and workforce solutions, providing research and advisory services for over 30 years. Its Best Staffing Firms to Work For programme is one of the most closely watched benchmarks in the recruitment industry, precisely because it isn’t based on self-reported claims.
The award recognises top employers in the staffing industry based on anonymous employee surveys across teamwork, engagement, trust, and work-life balance. Firms are assessed against their peers across multiple categories by size and region, with the Grand Prize reserved for the single highest-scoring firm across the entire UK programme — a distinction separate from, and above, the individual category winners.
Astute was recognised for prioritising trust, respect, and encouragement as a people-focused business — the same values that continue to guide the firm’s culture today, several years and multiple further award recognitions later.
CEO Terry Buckel on Winning the SIA Best Staffing Firm Award
Terry Buckel, Founder and CEO, said:
“This award means a lot personally, recognising our efforts to create the best company to work for. We have focused on improving work/life balance, especially post-lockdown, and will continue to challenge ourselves to improve. People are at the centre of our values, and that starts with looking after our own staff.”
Celebrating Our People-Focused Culture
Winning the SIA Best Staffing Firm award for 2023 highlights Astute’s commitment to fostering a positive work environment. This award validates the hard work of our teams in creating trust, respect, and encouragement across the company.
Because the survey behind the award is completed anonymously by employees themselves, the result reflects what it’s actually like to work at Astute day to day, not a curated version of it. That distinction matters to candidates and clients alike: a business can describe its own culture however it likes, but it can’t manufacture how its own staff answer an anonymous survey.
Everyone at Astute is grateful for this recognition and will continue striving for excellence in everything we do. It’s a milestone that has continued to build over time, with Astute going on to be named Great Recruiters Certified and win NORA Best SME Employer in the years since — proof this SIA Best Staffing Firm recognition wasn’t a one-off but part of a consistent pattern of investing in people.
What This Recognition Means Going Forward
Awards like SIA Best Staffing Firm matter beyond the trophy itself. For candidates weighing up which recruitment agency to trust with a career move, and for clients choosing a partner to represent their brand in a competitive market, independently verified recognition of this kind signals something a company can’t simply claim about itself.
For Astute, it reinforces a simple principle: a business that looks after its own people is better placed to look after candidates and clients too. That principle has shaped everything from how consultants are trained and supported internally, to how candidates and clients are treated once they’re working with the team — and it’s a big part of why the recognition has continued well beyond 2023.