Southampton IT Recruitment Agency VIQU Bags Industry Award for Initiative Supporting Local NHS Trusts

As the UK went into lockdown and the majority of recruitment agencies furloughed their staff, Southampton IT recruiters VIQU took a different approach, deciding to dedicate their time to bringing together out-of-work IT contractors willing to volunteer their time for free, with NHS Trust IT departments in need of extra support due to additional pressures from the national lockdown.

Throughout 2020, VIQU supported 60+ local and national NHS Trusts and other blue light services, including the Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. They identified IT professionals to provide support for a number of IT jobs and technologies, including software developers, business analysts, Microsoft Teams trainers and IT project managers, placing over 260+ volunteers in total.

VIQU’s NHS IT Volunteer Initiative resulted in the NHS saving approximately £1.95 million, in addition to over 45% of volunteers securing paid IT contracts and permanent positions, due to the high value work they produced.

Alongside their work with the NHS, VIQU continued to support their clients, in addition to many new clients who unfortunately were not receiving recruitment support from their existing recruitment agency relationships due to the impact of Covid-19 and furlough.

VIQU were announced as winners of the ‘Best Small Recruitment Business’ at the Global Recruiter UK Awards 2021 in October 2021, with the judges sighting their impressive growth in 2020/21 and their success supporting the NHS.

“Growth of almost 70% in revenue when 77% of your clients stopped recruiting would be impressive.

To do this alongside founding the NHS Volunteer initiative to support the NHS in setting up the infrastructure and training to enable remote working and in the process saving the NHS approx. £1.95 million – is an unbelievable achievement.

This is a solid business which looks after all of its stakeholders and invests in each community it serves – well done.

- Global Recruiter UK Awards 2021 Judges Comments

“I am very humbled and completely blown away by our win at the Global Recruiter UK Awards earlier this month. We’re a small IT recruitment agency based in Southampton and Birmingham, yet I believe we had a national impact on the NHS through our initiative and I am very glad the judges acknowledged our hard work.

I truly believe our team of IT recruiters, software developers and support staff make VIQU one of the best recruitment agencies in Southampton, Birmingham and beyond.”

- Matt Collingwood – Managing Director of VIQU