Three ways to buy people from us
Most global workforce providers broker labour. We employ it. Across the UK, EU, LATAM, APAC and North America every worker on your account is employed by the Cogent entity in that country - which is what lets us commit to vetting standards, security clearance, training and the continuity of the same named people.
The practice divides into three service lines. Talent Services is recruitment: permanent, contract and contract-to-hire across infrastructure, network, cloud, cyber and delivery roles, matched against a seven-tier capability framework. Managed Workforce is the ongoing operation: dedicated and designated teams delivered under statement of work, with employer-of-record engagement, TUPE transfers and payroll bureau. Background Verification is screening as a service, run as a module inside Cogent OS and available standalone.
All three run on the same platform and the same worker record, so a candidate sourced on Monday, screened on Tuesday and deployed the following month is one continuous record - not three systems and a spreadsheet.
Talent, managed workforce, screening
Talent Services
Permanent, contract and contract-to-hire recruitment across EUC, network, cyber and cloud - two-stage vetting, T0 to T6 tiering, 12-week replacement guarantee on permanent placements.
Open the service page →Managed Workforce
Dedicated and designated teams we employ, schedule, manage, QA and pay, delivering under your statement of work or ours - with coverage across 100+ countries and TUPE transfers handled properly.
Open the service page →Background Verification (BGVaaS)
Screening as a service in 198 jurisdictions: identity, residence, employment, education, criminal record and risk-banded drug testing, run on the worker record with an immutable audit trail.
Open the service page →Managed Workforce
Four structural advantages
Structural, not promotional - each of these follows from being the employer, owning the platform and governing the delivery ourselves.
Quality at global scale
Vetted workers, DBS, SC and international clearances coordinated by us, and a capability framework that puts the right talent in the right place at the right time.
Cost savings
We are the employer, so there is no agency margin layer sitting between you and the person doing the work.
Programme visibility & control
Technology-enabled through Cogent OS: complete visibility of the workforce delivering for you, live rather than monthly.
Risk & global compliance
The compliance obligations that come with a cross-border workforce, owned by us and evidenced in the platform.
On-demand, pre-vetted, job-matched technical talent
Onsite and remote, across six role families and seven capability tiers, managed on one platform.
Network
Network - transmission & wireless
End-user computing & ITSM
Cyber security
Cloud, server & storage
Programme & delivery
Seven capability tiers
Every role is tiered, so a brief for a "field engineer" resolves to a defined scope, autonomy level and rate band rather than an argument on site.
T1 to T4 is our standing, directly-employed workforce - available now, on our payroll, in the country where the work is. T5 and T6 are senior workers deployed on a project basis against a defined scope.
One platform, one workflow, one source of truth
Six modules carry the workforce programme. They are modules on one system, not integrations between tools - which is why the timesheet, the clearance and the asset all sit on the same worker record.
1 · Project Module
On-site and remote communication plus delivery tracking - the job, the site, the task list and the conversation in one place.
2 · Escalation Module
Escalations routed by level with owners, 72-hour action turnaround and a documented performance review trail.
3 · Work Operations
Security controls, productivity measures and KPI tracking against the agreed service levels.
4 · People Module
HR records, benefits, clearances and training - with certification and induction expiry enforced at scheduling.
5 · Billing Module
Contracts, timesheets, bill and pay across multiple entities and currencies, reconciled to delivered work.
6 · Asset & CMDB
Serial-level asset lifecycle, so the kit a worker holds and installs is on the same record as the work.
Why this practice exists
The market pressure is documented, and it is not going to resolve itself inside a hiring cycle.
Operators cannot find qualified candidates
Difficulty sourcing qualified network and infrastructure staff remains one of the most-cited operational constraints.
Staffing is a critical constraint
Staffing shortages are identified as a critical constraint on infrastructure growth and delivery timelines.
Retention as hard as recruitment
Operators report difficulty both attracting and retaining technical staff, compounding the shortfall.
340,000 roles projected unfilled
Projected unfilled infrastructure and network roles, on current supply and demand trajectories.
Around 40% of operators suffered a major outage caused by human error in a three-year period. (Uptime Institute, Annual Outage Analysis)
Adding bodies to a shortage does not fix that; procedure does. Every worker we deploy into a production-adjacent environment works from a maintained MOP and SOP library rather than from memory, production-adjacent network works are performed under the two-person rule, and every change runs against an approved RFC through change advisory board approval.
That is the difference between supplying staff and delivering a managed workforce: the procedure, the evidence and the accountability travel with the person.
Source, screen, engage, manage, pay
The lifecycle on the left, the Cogent OS tooling that runs it in the middle, and the delivery-manager quality loop on the right.
Talent service levels
| SERVICE LEVEL | COMMITMENT | MEASURED AS |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent placement | Shortlist of 3 to 5 qualified candidates, 4 to 6 weeks to start date | Days from signed brief to accepted offer |
| Contract / contingent | CV submission against brief, 5 to 10 days to start | Days from brief to worker on site |
| Employer of record setup | 10 working days to a compliant engagement in-country | Days from instruction to first contracted day |
| Replacement guarantee | 12 weeks on permanent placements | Free replacement where a placement leaves inside the period |
| Timesheet to invoice | Weekly cadence - submit, approve, invoice | Approval rate and days to invoice |
| AWR tracking | 12-week qualifying period tracked per placement | Placement-level compliance record |
| Escalation turnaround | 72 hours on action items at every escalation level | Hours from raise to documented action |
Measured in Cogent OS, reported monthly, reviewed at QBR. Where a market or a role makes a commitment unrealistic we say so at scoping rather than signing and missing it.
Four things that are hard to copy
We are the employer
Not an agency margin on someone else's contract - the worker is on a Cogent payroll in a Cogent entity, working to our standards, with our training obligation.
Screening is built in
BGV runs inside Cogent OS on the same worker record, so clearance status and expiry are operational data that block scheduling, not a PDF in a folder.
Nineteen countries of employment law
Local contracts, benefits and statutory filings handled by the local entity, with employer of record where you have no presence.
Managed, not just supplied
A named delivery manager, agreed service levels and a quality loop - so you buy an outcome rather than a stack of CVs.
Measured, not asserted
Other practice areas
Need people, or a team, or both?
Tell us the roles, the countries and the start dates. We will tell you which are on the bench now, which need sourcing, and which need employer of record.