Author: Suzi Smith, Managing Director, Matrix
As I look back on 2025, it’s clear that the UK’s public sector has been navigating one of its most complex and transformative workforce landscapes in years. The pressures of cost management, legislative reform and evolving expectations from both candidates and hiring managers have converged to reshape how we think about recruitment. For me, the defining theme has been agility, not just in how we fill roles, but in how we forecast demand, plan our workforces and engage with the communities we serve.
Balancing Cost with Continuity
Throughout 2025, cost savings and cost avoidance dominated the agenda across local authorities and wider public services. That’s not new, but what is new is how this focus has driven innovation in resourcing strategies. We’ve had to move from being reactive to being genuinely predictive. By providing supply partners with forward-looking demand data, we’ve been able to help them pool talent in advance, ensuring continuity in essential areas such as social care and frontline support.
At the same time, there’s been a deeper level of analysis around long-term contract workers such as understanding tenure, optimising sourcing channels and ultimately finding ways to retain expertise while reducing cost. In some cases, this has even extended to customers developing their own white-labelled talent pools, often linked to social value initiatives. This kind of creative, collaborative sourcing isn’t just a cost measure; it’s becoming a cultural shift in how public bodies think about workforce ownership and community engagement.
Evolving Expectations in a Hybrid World
Hybrid working remains one of the most hotly debated topics, but what’s fascinating is how differently it plays out in the public sector versus the private sector. Public bodies, by and large, continue to embrace hybrid models – often around a 40/60 split between office and home and there’s little appetite to reverse that trend. The private sector, however, has been moving back towards more office-based operations, especially in roles where collaboration, problem-solving and innovation thrive in person.
This divergence is now creating an intriguing dynamic: two sectors often competing for the same talent but offering very different working propositions. The recruitment leader now needs to be more strategic in articulating the value of the public sector proposition not just in flexibility, but in purpose, stability and contribution to community outcomes.
Smarter Workforce Planning
The move towards agile workforce planning has fundamentally changed how organisations approach talent acquisition. The days of thinking purely in terms of “permanent” or “temporary” are over. We’re now building multi-layered workforce models that combine permanent staff with contingent labour, gig workers and project-based specialists.
This shift has empowered employers to make more intelligent, skills-centric hiring decisions. Instead of asking “what role do I need to fill?”, organisations are asking “what skill do I need to achieve this outcome, and for how long?” That question alone signals a major maturity leap in workforce thinking. It’s driving greater cost control, flexibility and the ability to scale capability up or down with genuine foresight.
The Human Connection Still Matters
Technology has rightly played a major role in streamlining recruitment, automating workflows and improving data visibility but there’s a real risk that in the excitement around AI, automation and analytics, we lose sight of the human element. I’ve seen too many organisations invest heavily in tech while overlooking the relationships that underpin effective service delivery.
Customer service, emotional intelligence and relational understanding are what sustain partnerships. Knowing a client’s strategic intent, culture and emotional climate is what makes the difference between transactional delivery and true collaboration. In my view, relationship management isn’t an old-fashioned idea it’s the foundation of long-term success, particularly in a decentralised, hybrid environment.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
One of the most encouraging developments of late has been the spirit of openness and collaboration among public sector bodies. Initiatives like the London Pledge, where authorities share knowledge, insight and even workforce intelligence, demonstrate what’s possible when competition gives way to cooperation. I recently took part in a London-wide collaboration session where local authorities, strategic partners and even government departments sat around the same table, openly discussing challenges and sharing data. That’s the kind of ecosystem thinking we need to accelerate across the UK.
As we move into 2026, the public sector’s most effective workforce strategies will centre on a skills-first approach, where hiring is driven by capabilities, outcomes and adaptability rather than traditional job titles. This shift reflects a growing move toward project-based and cross-functional ways of working, allowing organisations to deploy talent more intelligently.
Alongside this, new employment legislation is likely to accelerate the adoption of flexible and alternative engagement models – from gig work and statement-of-work contracts to hybrid employment structures – which must be implemented responsibly to ensure fairness and compliance while keeping the public sector competitive for scarce skills. At the same time, candidate experience will emerge as a key differentiator, demanding that public bodies think and act more like brands: communicating their purpose clearly, engaging authentically and embedding diversity, inclusion and ESG into the heart of their identity. Ultimately, 2026 will bring both challenge and opportunity and those organisations that balance commercial intelligence with social purpose – while never losing sight of the human relationships that underpin success – will be best positioned to thrive.
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