Texting candidates: the rules for recruitment agencies

The ONS estimated 691,000 vacancies in the UK in July to September 2026, in its Vacancies and jobs bulletin published on 20 October 2026. That's 21,000 fewer than the quarter before and 37,000 fewer than a year earlier, and the first time the total has been below 700,000 since February to April 2021. Outside the pandemic, the ONS says, the last time it was this low was July to September 2014. There were 2.4 unemployed people for every vacancy in June to August.

For a recruitment agency, a market like that means more candidates for each role and more messages to send: job alerts, shift offers, interview reminders, timesheet nudges and the "sorry, not this time" that nobody enjoys writing. Texts suit most of them, because they reach the candidate's own phone and can be answered in a word. The rules are where it gets fiddly. A job alert is an advertisement under the agency regulations, and quite often it's direct marketing under PECR as well.

How many jobs are there to fill?

The ONS Vacancy Survey asks businesses how many jobs they're actively recruiting for. The July to September figure has fallen every year since the 2022 peak of 1,235,000, and the 2026 early estimate of 691,000 sits below where it was before the pandemic.

The fall isn't even across employers. Businesses with 1 to 9 employees had 77,000 vacancies in July to September 2026, down 21,000 on the quarter and 38,000 (32.8%) on the year, the lowest for that size band outside the pandemic since mid-2013. The ONS adds that feedback from its survey "continues to suggest that smaller firms may not be recruiting because of increases in labour costs". Vacancies fell in 14 of 18 industry sectors on the quarter, with construction down the most, by 7,000. The UK vacancy rate, unfilled jobs as a share of all jobs, was 2.1%.

A job alert is an advertisement

The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 set the ground rules for agencies and employment businesses in England, Scotland and Wales. Regulation 2 defines an advertisement as including "every form of advertising by whatever means", which takes in a job alert by text as surely as a post on a job board.

Regulation 27 then says what every advertisement has to contain. It must give "the full name of the agency or employment business" and, for each position, "whether it is for temporary or permanent work". An agency can't advertise a position at all unless it has information about that specific position and the hirer's authority to find people for it. And where an advert gives a rate of pay, regulation 27(3) requires it to "state the nature of the work, the location at which the work-seeker would be required to work, and the minimum experience, training or qualifications" needed for that rate.

That's a lot to fit into 160 characters, so a job alert that quotes pay has to be written to the regulation first and to the character limit second. Name, temporary or permanent, the job, the place, the pay and the experience required will usually just about fit, with a link to the full advert. Drop the pay figure and the regulation 27(3) list no longer applies, though the name and the temporary or permanent label still do.

Offering a shift by text

Regulation 21 covers the moment an agency offers a work-seeker a position. At that point it must give them the information it has from the hirer under regulation 18, paragraphs (a) to (e): the hirer's identity and the nature of its business, the start date and likely duration, the position, the type of work, the location, the hours, any known health and safety risks, the experience or qualifications required, and any expenses. An agency also passes on the minimum rate of pay and any notice period, and an employment business tells the worker the rate it will pay them if that hasn't already been agreed.

That information can be given "orally or otherwise". If it isn't given "in paper form or by electronic means" at the time, regulation 21(2) says it must be confirmed that way "no later than the end of the third business day" after. For short assignments of five consecutive business days or less, where the worker already has the rest of the information and nothing has changed, regulation 21(4) lets an employment business give just the hirer's identity and the dates and duration in paper or electronic form. A text is an electronic message, so on a plain reading it can carry those details. In practice most agencies send the full set by email or through their app and use the text to make the offer and point to it, which keeps each message short.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 will add notice rules for shifts, and our post on shift alerts by text covers what has been published so far.

When is a job alert direct marketing?

PECR defines direct marketing as "the communication (by whatever means) of advertising or marketing material which is directed to particular individuals", and the ICO's guidance says a message that "actively promotes or encourages people to make use of a particular service" is likely to count. A text telling a particular candidate about a vacancy promotes the vacancy and the agency's service.

The ICO's draft guidance on recruitment and selection is direct about it. It says that posting a vacancy on your own social media page for all your followers isn't direct marketing, but that sending someone a private message about your advert "constitutes direct marketing and electronic mail under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations". A text to a named candidate is the same kind of message, since PECR's electronic mail definition expressly "includes messages sent using a short message service". The guidance is still a draft: the consultation has closed, the ICO says the final version "will be published in due course", and it's under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

So job alerts by text need consent. The soft opt-in, which lets a business market to "an existing customer who bought (or negotiated to buy) a similar product or service", was written for customers, and a candidate who registered for free doesn't fit it neatly. In our view the clean route is a separate, unticked box at registration for job alerts by text, a record of when it was ticked, and "Reply STOP to opt out" on every alert. STOP replies only work on texts sent from a number, which is one more reason to send alerts from one. The ICO's checklist also asks you to keep a "do not contact" list and screen against it.

The rest of the texts an agency sends are service messages: confirming an interview, confirming a booked shift, chasing a timesheet, telling someone the outcome. The ICO describes these as messages "for administrative or customer services purposes", like messages to "confirm or remind them about appointments". They don't need marketing consent, as long as they don't carry a promotion. "Your interview is at 10:30, and here are three more roles you might like" has become a marketing text.

Candidate data, and how long to keep the thread

Candidate phone numbers and the texts sent to them are personal data, so UK GDPR applies alongside the agency rules. Regulation 29 of the 2003 Regulations requires agencies to keep records "sufficient to show whether the provisions of the Act and these Regulations are being complied with", for "at least one year" from creation and at least one year after the agency last provided services to the person concerned. The records "may be kept in electronic form". A sent text with its timestamp is part of that record when it carried the offer or the confirmation.

The ICO's draft recruitment guidance says data protection law "does not specify timescales for keeping recruitment records", that you should set clear retention periods, and that "in general, you should not keep information beyond the statutory period in which a legal claim can potentially be brought". Our post on how long to keep text message records covers retention for texts more broadly.

Who enforces the rules?

The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate used to. Its work now sits with the Fair Work Agency, whose delivery plan for its first year, 2026 to 2027, lists the inspectorate as one of the bodies it brings together. The agency's own description of its job includes "regulating employment agencies and businesses in England, Scotland and Wales", and it can inspect, require employers to put things right, issue penalties and prosecute. Regulation 29 already refers to records being produced on request under the Employment Rights Act 2025 powers.

The texts themselves

Written for a made-up agency, Fairley Recruitment, and each one fits in a single part. A job alert to a candidate who opted in, with the regulation 27 details because it quotes pay:

Fairley Recruitment: temp warehouse picker, Leeds LS11, weekdays 6am to 2pm, £13.50/hr, no experience needed. example.co.uk/j/3381 Reply STOP to opt out

A shift offer, with the full details following by email:

Fairley Recruitment: shift offer, Thu 29 Oct, 07:00 to 15:00, picker at Hartfield Foods, Leeds LS11, £13.50/hr. Reply YES to accept. Full details by email.

The confirmation:

Fairley Recruitment: confirmed, Thu 29 Oct 07:00 to 15:00 at Hartfield Foods. Safety boots needed, report to gate 2. Reply if anything changes.

An interview reminder:

Fairley Recruitment: reminder, your interview with Hartfield Foods is tomorrow (Fri) at 10:30, 12 Mill Lane, Leeds. Ask for Dana. Reply C to confirm.

A timesheet nudge:

Fairley Recruitment: please submit your timesheet for the week ending Sun 1 Nov by 10:00 on Monday so you're paid on time.

And the outcome, which deserves a text as much as the offer does:

Fairley Recruitment: thanks for interviewing for the Hartfield role. They've offered it to another candidate. Dana will call you tomorrow with feedback.

The alert is the only one of the six that needs consent. The other five are service messages.

Sending at volume without losing the replies

A shift offer to twenty people gets twenty replies, and the first YES wins. CaptiFi Connect sends from a UK mobile number with a two-way inbox, so every YES lands in one place, timestamped, and team logins let the consultant on the early shift pick it up. STOP and the other opt-out words are handled automatically, so a candidate who opts out of alerts drops off the next send without anyone touching a spreadsheet. The one habit no software supplies is the regulation 27 check before an alert goes out, and an alert that names the agency, the job, the place, the pay and the experience needed has passed it.