If you’ve been in recruitment long enough, you’ll know something simple but uncomfortable:
Some recruiters plateau. Others compound. And the difference isn’t necessarily talent.
If you’re serious about increasing your earnings in recruitment, you need to think beyond “I’ll just try to bill more this quarter.” There are multiple levers available, and the highest earners pull several at once.
Recruiters typically make money in multiple ways:
- Base salary
- Commission
- Bonuses and incentives
In truth, you’ll need to do a mixture of the below to truly lift your earning potential. If your financial growth depends solely on incremental salary increases, your ceiling will rise slowly. If you focus purely on your commission then you may miss out on easier opportunities for increasing your income.
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1. Increase your billings (and hence your commission)
Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way first.
There are essentially just two ways to increase the amount that you’re billing each month, and hence increase the amount of commission that hits your bank account:
- Do more deals
- Increase your average deal fee
How to do more deals as a recruiter
Many recruiters try to make more money by doing more. More calls. More CV sends. More interviews. And that certainly is a way to do more deals (hopefully) but it’s also a fast route to burnout.
High earners increase earnings by improving conversion. This means making yourself more efficient so you have more time to do things like build relationships with your clients and candidates and grow your network.
If you tighten qualification, manage expectations better, reduce drop-outs, and control counter-offers effectively, your revenue rises without your hours increasing. Small improvements at each stage of the funnel compound quickly.
How to increase your average fee (and hence your commission)
There are two ways to increase your average deal fee:
1. Increase the fee you’re charging the client
This might not be in your control if you’re in a more junior role, but it’s still a conversation worth having. Increasing your clients’ fee might mean increasing the % you charge them per placement, or it could mean upselling them to a higher tier of service, for example working their roles on a retained basis rather than on a contingent basis.
2. Work roles with higher salaries or rates
Firstly, positioning yourself as someone who can work more senior roles, even C-suite roles, will increase the amount you earn per deal you do. Of course there are different skills required for executive search rather than standard contingent recruitment, so don’t make the mistake of thinking this will be a walk in the park!
Secondly, the sector you’re working in greatly affects the salaries and rates of the people you’re placing, and therefore how much money you can make from doing deals. Recruiting blue collar construction workers is a totally different ball game to recruiting senior level data centre professionals.
For us, the average perm fee in 2025 was £16.5k (for our UK/Europe arm of the business – US fees are typically even higher). That level of fee doesn’t come from pure volume, it comes from authority, positioning and disciplined process control.
Actions to take:
- Go through your deal process from start to finish. Are there any parts that are more inefficient or time-consuming than others? Could AI or automation help you streamline the process?
- Think about the last time a deal fell through. What was the reason? Were there any steps you could’ve taken to prevent this?
- Reach out to your L&D team, if you have one. Can they spot areas for improvement?
- Assess the sector you’re in and the roles you typically work. Could you position yourself to work more senior roles?
2. Increase your base salary
Base salary is often the least scalable part of your income, but it’s still worth trying to increase it if you’re trying to make more money as a recruitment consultant.
There are primarily three ways you can increase your base salary as a recruitment consultant:
1. Negotiate a pay rise in your current role
This means discussing your base salary with your manager, not basing it on increased responsibilities, but rather on your personal market value or factors such as inflation. Take a look at what other agencies are offering and use that to assess whether what you’re earning is about right or whether you feel you’re owed an increase.
2. Go for a promotion
This means discussing your options for an increase in responsibility (and hence base salary) because you feel you can do more in your role than you are currently doing. This might mean that you’re hitting billings targets to be promoted to ‘Principal Recruitment Consultant’ or that you have spotted a management opportunity within the business.
It’s worth bearing in mind that promotions might not just come with higher base salaries, but also higher commission rates and access to more financial incentives. This will depend on your agency so would be worth talking to your manager about.
3. Move to a new recruitment agency
While moving to a new agency does not guarantee an increase in base salary, it is likely, depending on how long you’ve been working at your current agency. Again, research is your friend here. Use LinkedIn and other job boards to assess your market value and the potential for an increase.
Actions to take:
- Research recruiter salaries and decide whether you think your base salary currently reflects what your market value is.
- Have a clear conversation with your manager about what your career progression looks like over the next 12–24 months.
- If you’re looking to move to a new recruitment agency and you’re based in the Southampton/Portsmouth/Winchester area of the UK, drop us a message to careers@highfieldps.co.uk to discuss our current vacancies.
3. Increase your bonuses and incentive payments
Another often overlooked way to make more money as a recruiter is by fully leveraging the bonus schemes and incentives offered by the company you work for.
Many agencies structure quarterly bonuses, accelerator thresholds, and performance-based incentives that significantly boost total earnings if you take the time to understand how they work. The difference between just hitting target and exceeding it by 10–15% can unlock disproportionately higher payouts.
If you add in incentives such as top-performer trips (like the one we do annually, last year to Malta), welfare allowances or profit-share structures, and your total compensation can shift meaningfully.
The key is to understand exactly where bonus triggers sit, and to plan your activity around them rather than stumbling into them by accident.
Actions to take:
- Review your bonus structure in detail and identify where accelerators or threshold jumps significantly increase your payout – then plan your quarter around hitting those levels early.
- Ask your manager or a culture lead in your business to walk you through how top performers maximise incentives and bonuses, not just how they hit target.
4. BONUS TIP – Make yourself indispensable
A little bonus section for those of you who have read this far!
The highest earners don’t just sell CVs. They provide real value.
An often underrated way to improve your earning potential in your current role (WITHOUT negotiating a higher base salary or billing more) is to make yourself indispensable in the company you work for.
Being indispensable means that you’re much harder to replace – your employer will consciously try to retain you and keep you happy in your role.
When you provide salary benchmarking, competitor mapping, market intelligence, or structured hiring advice, you become embedded in your client’s decision-making process. If your value stops at sending profiles, your earning ceiling remains low because you’re a transactional recruiter.
To be truly unique in your agency, you’ll need a strong personal brand that increases response rates, strengthens negotiation position and improves fee resilience. It’s not about ego, it’s about authority.
Read more: How to Build Your Personal Brand as a Recruiter
Looking for a new role as a senior recruitment consultant?
We’re hiring in our office in Durley (SO32) and would love to hear from you.
Email careers@highfieldps.co.uk