Data definitions for the nine metrics

Total number of active vacancies that remain open and have been authorised to recruit, signed off by the business, on the last day of the previous month. An open vacancy is any active vacancy where the candidate has not yet started.

The most up-to-date number of employees on the payroll: permanent and fixed-term employees on contracts of service, excluding third-party contractors, in line with the Companies Act 2006 definition of persons employed under contracts of service. Covers only the area of the business being benchmarked, not total company headcount unless that is the agreed scope.

The calendar date the requisition was formally signed off by the business and TA began the hiring process. This is not the date the role was advertised or posted; it is the date the vacancy was formally authorised for recruitment internally. This date may differ from the requisition approval or system creation date depending on your ATS configuration.

The calendar date the offer was formally accepted by the successful candidate. This is the date of written or verbal acceptance, not the date the offer was made, and not the date a contract was signed or returned.

See Metric 02. The same open date is the start point for both time-based metrics.

The actual calendar date the successful candidate started in role, the first day of employment. Where this differs from the contracted start date, use the actual date. All calculations use calendar days, not working days.

Total number of external permanent and fixed-term hires made in the twelve months prior to data entry. A permanent employee is someone hired without a pre-determined end date. A fixed-term employee has a defined end date and is on the monthly payroll, and is recruited by TA through the same process as a permanent hire. Excludes contractors, temps, and early-careers hires.

Total number of TA-facilitated internal moves made in the twelve months prior to data entry. An internal move is the selection of a candidate from the current workforce to fill a vacancy. Only include moves where TA resource was actively used; exclude informal transfers or manager-led moves with no TA involvement.

Whether an offer was made to a candidate who declined it during the hiring of this requisition, prior to the successful hire. Only accepted and declined offers relating to the same vacancy are counted. A non-response, where a candidate neither formally accepts nor formally declines, is excluded from both totals.

Annual basic salary awarded to the successful candidate, excluding bonus, sign-on fee, and benefits. Used to assign each hire, and any associated declined offer on the same requisition, to a salary band, so the acceptance rate can be reported by band. Provided in the local currency of the employment country.

The total actual cost of the recruitment function over the period, usually a year. It includes all resourcing spend, technology costs, provider and agency costs, TA headcount costs, and the TA-attributed proportion of wider HR team costs. Use actual spend rather than budget, and include only costs that fall within the agreed benchmarking scope.

See Metric 04. External hires plus internal moves; the denominator for Cost per Starter.

Total number of hires who left within 12 months of joining the business, including those leaving for reasons of redundancy and performance management. Typically sourced from an HR headcount report containing start and termination dates. To confirm whether a leaver was a new hire, cross-reference against the filled requisition report from the ATS.

See Metric 04. The denominator for the attrition rate is total hires, external plus internal, in line with the other hire-based metrics.

The sourcing channel through which the successful candidate was identified. Where an exact match cannot be found, use the closest available standard category. Standard channels: Temp-to-Perm, Referral, LinkedIn, Job Board, Direct Source, Agency, Website, Alumni, Events, Unaccountable.

See Metric 04. The denominator for each channel's percentage.

The total number of candidates who completed at least one interview or assessment stage conducted by or involving the hiring manager for this requisition, regardless of outcome. Includes candidates who were interviewed but not offered the role. Excludes candidates screened solely by TA who did not progress to hiring manager stage. Each unique candidate counts once per requisition, regardless of how many stages they completed.

Actual number of verbal and written offers declined by candidates in the last 12 months. Combined with total hires to produce total offers made. A non-response is not counted as a declined offer.

See Metric 04. The accepted offers, that is total hires, form part of the total offers made denominator, alongside declined offers. Starters and hires are the same figure.

The most up-to-date revenue figure as used by the Finance department, covering only the area of the business under review. Revenue is the total amount received for goods sold or services provided, including net sales, asset exchanges, and interest, calculated before expenses are subtracted.

See Metric 01. Permanent and fixed-term employees on contracts of service, excluding third-party contractors. Used as the denominator in the revenue-per-employee-per-day calculation.

The number of calendar days in the year (365), used to convert the annual revenue-per-employee figure to a daily rate. Calendar days are used throughout all National Hiring Metrics calculations to ensure comparability across regions with different public holiday arrangements.

See Metric 02. The period between them, Time to Offer Accepted, is the portion of the vacancy that recruitment controls, and is used here as the vacancy duration. The metric is therefore an indicative measure of the recruitment-attributable financial impact, not the total revenue effect of the role standing empty, which continues through the notice period to the start date.

See Metric 04. The volume multiplier in the financial impact calculation.