Why Infrastructure Lowers Cost Per Hire at Scale

Salah Ahmed
Sep 14
2 min read

Here’s the paradox:

The more you hire, the more it costs.

With agencies, every role resets the clock: new brief, new search, new fee. No compounding value. No leverage.

That isn’t scale. That’s a tax on growth.

Most founders underestimate the true cost of delay.

Direct cost: UK benchmarks put the average cost per hire around £6,000 — but for senior GTM or managerial hires, it frequently lands at £15–20k, with agency fees often hitting £20–30k per role.
Hidden cost: vacancy drag. In SaaS, an AE with a £500k quota represents ~£9.6k ARR per week in potential contribution. A six-week vacancy = £60k in unrealised revenue — before you factor in churned pipeline or slowed team execution.

And time-to-hire is trending the wrong way. UK averages are now 5–6 weeks per role, with specialist GTM hires often stretching 8–12 weeks (LinkedIn Talent Trends 2024; CIPD Recruitment Benchmarks).

Every extra week compounds the cost.

You’d never rebuild your sales process after every deal.

So why rebuild your hiring process after every role?

The agency model is transactional:

Cost scales linearly with every hire.
Knowledge resets to zero.
Momentum is lost.

Infrastructure is different:

Always-on sourcing keeps talent pipelines warm.
Decision-ready shortlists in 5 days, not weeks.
Full-funnel visibility into every candidate stage.
Role-switch flexibility with no new fees.

Every role strengthens the system.

Every hire makes the next one faster, cheaper, better.

That’s not spend. That’s leverage.

A Series A SaaS company expanding into the UK began with agencies:

12 weeks → only 2 hires.
Nearly 40% of CVs were duplicates their internal team had already seen.
Fees already exceeded £28k, with no certainty of delivery.

They switched to TalentLayerOMX™:

First decision-ready shortlists in 5 days.
6 GTM roles filled in under 9 weeks.
Zero duplicates. Zero dropouts.
Average cost per hire: ~£1.8k (versus £15–20k market norm).
£70k+ in projected agency fees avoided.

The result? Their UK GTM team launched on schedule. Competitors didn’t get the head start. And they’re not alone — Series A and B peers across SaaS are already adopting infrastructure models for exactly this reason.

Hiring Model	Cost per Hire	Speed to Value	Compounding Effect	Commercial Impact at 10 Hires
Agency	£15–30k (senior GTM)	2–4 weeks to shortlist	Resets every role	£150–300k in fees + £60k ARR lost per vacant seat
TalentLayerOMX™	~£1.5–2k (at scale)	5 days to shortlist	Improves with every hire (compounding)	£15–20k total + ARR secured on schedule