UK Staff Shortage: Don't Rush a Permanent Hire

Recruitment is becoming tougher for a lot of UK businesses right now. According to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), 73% of businesses trying to hire are struggling to fill roles, while 23% expect their workforce to grow over the coming months.

When your business is short-staffed, the first instinct is usually to fill the gap fast: get someone, anyone reasonable, into the seat and move on. But that instinct can easily backfire.

Handling a staff shortage well takes discipline more than speed, and the businesses that handle it best stay deliberate about who they hire, even while the pressure to fill the seat keeps mounting.

How to Manage a Staff Shortage at a Glance

73% of UK businesses trying to hire report the search is proving difficult, according to the British Chambers of Commerce's 2026 Quarterly Recruitment Outlook
Rushing a permanent hire during a staff shortage means making a major people decision under pressure, with no time to properly assess fit for the role.
Temporary cover closes the operational gap within days, and allows more time for a proper permanent hiring process without cutting corners
The clearest signal to convert temporary cover to permanent is a proven, ongoing need for the role, backed by full referencing

Why a Staff Shortage Makes You Want to Rush a Hire

An empty role has a real cost: deadlines slip, other staff quietly absorb the extra work: Resource Guru's State of (Over)working research found 84% of UK desk workers already do regular overtime. And customers notice when things take longer than they should to sort out. Hence, hiring the first candidate who seems capable becomes very tempting.

A business owner in the BCC's survey summed up the pressure directly, pointing to “a severe shortage of skilled personnel” as the reason recruitment and expansion were both proving difficult.

The problem is that speed and permanence solve two different problems, and a rushed hire tries to answer both with one decision. Permanent hires come with the saddle of notice periods, training costs, and a real knock-on effect on the rest of your team if the fit is wrong. Handle an urgent, short-term gap with that kind of long-term commitment, and you've made a big hiring decision while pressured, distracted, and short on time to check anyone properly.

What a Rushed Permanent Hire Actually Costs You

The cost of a bad permanent hire rarely shows up in week one. It surfaces a few months in:

Performance that doesn't match the interview
A personality that grates against the team
A skills gap nobody caught, because there wasn't time to check it properly

And by then you've paid for onboarding and training, absorbed a dip in productivity while they found their feet, and in plenty of cases you're back where you started. Managing someone out takes time and can be expensive depending on their contract, and you'll need to run the whole search again while the business is still short-staffed.

Now, weigh that against the cost of taking a few extra weeks to hire properly in the first place, instead of months of disruption later. Under pressure, hiring speed can feel like the only lever you have, but it’s rarely the best option.

How to Manage a Staff Shortage at Peak Periods

Peak periods increase the need to rush a permanent hire. Here's how to handle a shortage without letting the pressure decide for you.

Bridge the Gap with Temporary Cover First

Temporary cover is usually the better first move, not a rushed permanent hire. Interim support can help you close the operational gap in days, and it doesn't require you to commit to anyone before you've had a proper chance to assess their fit for the role.

Most specialist recruitment agencies can supply short-notice temporary staff quickly, and a good temp can often start adding value within their first few days. What that buys you is the one resource a shortage takes away: time.

Time to write the job description properly
Time to interview more candidates
Time to check references properly, rather than skimming them under pressure

Most importantly, they are a relief for your existing team, who are usually the ones absorbing the extra work while the role sits empty.

So, treat getting a temporary cover as a deliberate first step. It lets you fill today's gap immediately, and gives you more time to get the right permanent, so one rushed decision doesn't have to carry both. The same logic applies if you're managing a formal hiring freeze rather than a shortage. Temporary staff typically fall outside freeze restrictions, so they're often the fastest way to ease the pressure while requirements are reviewed.

Keep Your Permanent Hiring Process on Its Own Timeline

With the operational gap covered, the permanent process should run exactly as it normally would. So interview more than one candidate. Check their references properly. And take the time to assess fit for the role and the team, not just the job description on paper.

Build in a face-to-face stage wherever you can, even a video call. Fit and communication style are hard to judge from a CV and a single interview alone. If you are working with an external recruiter, make sure speed isn't the only brief you've given them.

A recruiter working with thorough referencing, structured interviews, and honest feedback in both directions tends to produce a better long-term fit than a process run purely against a deadline.

Know When It's Time to Convert or Commit

Two signals are worth watching for after you’ve hired a temp cover.

The first: your temp is doing the job well, and the role has turned into a genuine long-term need. That's usually your cue to talk to them about converting rather than starting a fresh search.

The second: your permanent search has produced a strong candidate who's been through the full process, referenced, interviewed, and checked for fit. Then, that's your cue to commit. Either way, what you're watching for is your confidence in the hire, not how long the role has been open.

If you're still not confident after a reasonable search, don't lower the bar just to fill the vacancy. Look again at the job description, the salary, or where you're advertising instead. Annual salary surveys can be months out of date by the time they're published, so it's worth checking your offer against live UK job-posting data rather than last year's benchmark.

Fix the Shortage Without Rushing the Hire

Hiring pressure isn't easing for most UK businesses any time soon, but how you respond to it is still within your control.

Bridge the operational gap with temporary cover, let your permanent process run at its normal pace, and only commit when you're genuinely confident, not just relieved to have someone in the seat.

Handled this way, a staff shortage becomes an added advantage for your team, rather than creating a second, bigger problem down the line.

Author bio

Auria Heanley is co-founder of Oriel Partners, a specialist UK recruitment consultancy for PA, EA and business support roles. Oriel Partners places permanent and temporary staff across corporate and private office environments UK-wide, combining over 40 years of sector expertise with efficient, relationship-led service.