Agency margin

[Svalbaard]

What margin is your agency taking of your overall daily rate?

I am going to renegotiate mine at next contract renewal and am trying to guage what others are taking so I can present a well researched case.

No need to name your agency. I'm just interested in the approx % figure.

Many thanks.

[DeludedAussie]

What margin is your agency taking of your overall daily rate?

I am going to renegotiate mine at next contract renewal and am trying to guage what others are taking so I can present a well researched case.

No need to name your agency. I'm just interested in the approx % figure.

Many thanks.

21% on a 650 a day contract - Means client is paying about 1K a day after VAT is included

[craig1]

Last agency was on 10%, over the last 10 years though I've had agents charging from 7.5% through to 25%. That's the ones I know about, most will fight tooth & nail to keep that figure from you.

In a nutshell, as far as I'm concerned the longer the contract the harder it is for them to justify a high margin. That 25% was a 2 week contract paying me £1000 a day where the agent had to do a disproportionately high amount of work for the amount of money coming in.

Unless you've an "open book" contract with an agency, don't trust them on margins, they will lie to you and won't even pretend to be subtle about it. One said client refused to give me a rate rise on renewal when they'd gone to the client demanding a rate rise on my behalf saying I was being poached by a competitor. They got an extra £100 a day but didn't want to pass on an extra penny to me. I only found out when the client manager got snippy with me over working hours when before he'd been OK with a bit of flexi-time based on quiet/busy days.

[Wanderer]

Around 6% at the moment. The agent is on a PSL for a big client so this is probably at the lower end of the scale.

You can often find out what margin the agency is taking from the client. I've always found out sooner or later. It makes for a useful negotiating tool especially if the agency is taking a big cut. You have to be discrete about it though, some clients don't care if you know but others want to keep it as "business confidential".

[CheeseSlice]

My last contract through an agency was 15% margin. That was on a 3 month initial contract.
Clientco didn't do a good job of keeping my agency rate secret.

[Fred Bloggs]

I've found typically 8% for agencies on (a short) PSL or sole supplier status, I have only worked with large blue chip clients co's, I don't know about magin with smaller or medium size client co's.

[Old Greg]

Public sector catalogues (or whatever) tend to be about 11% in my experience.

[Scrag Meister]

Last contract, agency on PSL, 9% on top of my rate. Discovered in interview reading upside agency doc.

Current, agency on PSL, 11% on top of my rate.
Agency was open about it,and I saw my name on their whiteboard at there office and the numbers added up.

Been very lucky so far. Monday is the start of my 1st 6 month extension at my 2nd contract

[Jubber]

Last agency supplied contract was 12.5% margin.

[rootsnall]

It's still usually 20% in my game, a hangover of the 'all aboard' days me thinks. Even worse is the fact that some large Co's have gone with well known large agencies on PSLs and they then farm out the actual recruiting to smaller agencies, so the cut is doubled up. The PSL may be 10% but there is then another 15-20% taken out by the second agency. Madness but the big mutinationals must have their efficient PSL setups, a bit like the savings made by same big mutinationals when outsourcing