Mitie used Gaia’s AI-powered, cross-channel campaigns to hire 250+ secure-justice staff 45 percent faster, at just £240 per hire, while exceeding MoJ diversity targets.
Mitie, one of the UK’s largest facilities management companies, was awarded a Ministry of Justice contract to deliver key frontline roles across the secure justice system, including Prison Custody Officers and Managers. But success required more than filling roles. The MoJ’s commitment to inclusion demanded tangible DE&I progress, and the roles themselves required resilient, values-driven candidates in a challenging and often misunderstood sector.
To meet these goals, Mitie needed to reach and convert underrepresented candidates at scale, improve engagement and pass rates, and build a recruitment model that aligned with public sector values and commercial efficiency.
Gaia was brought in to lead talent attraction - helping Mitie source thousands of high-quality candidates through intelligent, inclusive campaigns.
Mitie Group PLC is the UK’s leading facilities management and professional services company, employing over 64,000 people. This programme supported Mitie’s delivery of the MoJ contract through its Care & Custody division, responsible for recruiting staff into prisons and secure facilities.
Traditional channels were not meeting the MoJ’s expectations on:
Mitie needed a new talent attraction approach that could:
Gaia delivered targeted, AI-powered talent attraction across 8 key channels, automatically picking the most effective mix for each audience:
GaiaAttract, our AI targeting engine, automatically selects and activates the right mix of channels based on what’s most effective for each audience using insights from thousands of similar campaigns.
Adverts were tailored by role and built around what mattered most to these candidates: pay, purpose, progression, and stability. Creatives was optimised to connect with each group on the platforms they use every day.
Behind the scenes, Gaia’s AI acts as a smart control layer across the entire campaign. Gaia doesn’t just place ads at scale, it learns what’s working, and dynamically shifts spend to the best-performing channels. Gaia also uses cross-channel retargeting to keep candidates engaged - meaning if someone interacts with an ad on TikTok, Gaia can follow up with the next advert on Instagram or YouTube.
🌍 More than half of OSG (Operational Support Grades) hires came from racially diverse backgrounds, which is over 2.5x the MoJ target.
Gaia’s social campaigns didn’t just generate volume, they drove a step change in candidate quality, evidenced by downstream hiring data:
✅ Candidates attracted through Gaia were more engaged, more likely to attend, and twice as likely to succeed through assessment.
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Gaia’s campaign directly contributed to transforming Mitie’s approach to public sector hiring - delivering measurable outcomes in scale, cost, diversity, and quality:
Gaia didn’t just deliver more candidates – it delivered the right ones, at lower cost, faster, and in full alignment with diversity, governance, and compliance expectations.
Assessment and interview stages were designed and delivered by Equitas, whose inclusive structure was instrumental to the success.
Mitie used Gaia to run AI-optimised, cross-channel ads that shifted spend to the best-performing platforms in real time, delivering hires up to eight times cheaper than traditional channels.
The campaign delivered 55 percent racially diverse hires for Operational Support Grades and nine percent ex-Forces representation, comfortably beating the Ministry of Justice targets of 20 percent and 2.5 percent.
Assessment pass rates doubled to 40 percent and attendance rose to 82 percent, proving that candidates sourced via Gaia were more engaged and more likely to succeed through each hiring stage.