Client Overview 

A premium, design-led student accommodation provider operating across the UK and Europe, with a portfolio spanning major university cities including London, Birmingham, Bristol and Nottingham, as well as key European markets. The business develops and manages purpose-built student accommodation, offering fully furnished, all-inclusive living with a strong emphasis on resident experience, wellbeing and managed services. With an aggressive growth strategy underway, the organisation faced a significant and sustained increase in recruitment demand across its expanding portfolio. 

The Challenge 

Rapid portfolio growth created a high volume of concurrent vacancies across operational, technical, customer-facing and head office functions, from General Managers and Heads of Operations to Marketing and Customer Service roles. Without an internal recruitment function, the business needed a trusted partner capable of managing the full recruitment lifecycle, scaling resource up or down in line with business need and embedding deeply enough to understand each hiring requirement from the ground up. 

Our Approach 

Led by a Recruitment Manager with direct PBSA operational experience, deverellsmith deployed a fully embedded recruitment service, operating on-site, alongside departments and hiring managers, to ensure every search was grounded in a genuine understanding of the business. 

Three core solutions were deployed: 

Employer Career Microsite 

deverellsmith built and continues to manage the client's dedicated careers page, including all live job advertising, ensuring a consistent and professional candidate-facing brand. 

Talent Advisory  

Ongoing salary benchmarking across head office functions and site-specific General Manager roles, with market-rate analysis tailored by city and asset size to support competitive and informed offers.