Mitie replaced expensive job boards and agencies with Gaia, an AI-powered multichannel talent attraction engine. The campaign delivered hires for just £240 each, up to eight times cheaper than traditional channels, and shortened time to hire by 45%, enabling Mitie to mobilise its Ministry of Justice contract on schedule and within budget.

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Introduction

Hiring for secure-justice jobs has always been expensive. Every candidate needs enhanced vetting, many drop out, and agencies charge a premium.

Mitie’s Care and Custody division was spending as much as £2,000 per hire yet still missing start dates.

To deliver a new Ministry of Justice contract the team had to fill more than 250 frontline roles quickly but also prove that every pound of public money was spent wisely.

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Challenge

Before Gaia came on board Mitie faced three cost drains that threatened contract margins:

• High media spend on job boards that generated low quality traffic and duplicate applicants.
• Agency fees of up to 20% of salary when vacancies became business critical.
• Slow funnel velocity, with six to eight weeks between application and start date, leaving shifts unfilled and driving overtime costs.
  

The finance team set a clear challenge: outperform previous suppliers without sacrificing candidate quality or security standards.

Solution

Mitie partnered with Gaia to flip the economics of the funnel. Together we designed a cost first attraction strategy that still protected quality.

How Gaia made the difference

To make the flow easy to follow we have grouped the tactics into three levers:

1. Channel efficiency first: GaiaAttract analysed thousands of historic campaign datapoints then launched ads only on the platforms that delivered the lowest cost per qualified click. Spend was capped daily and reallocated in real time, so poor performing channels were paused automatically. ‍
2. Smart retargeting instead of repeat media buys: Cookie free retargeting followed interested prospects across social and search, meaning Mitie paid to acquire each candidate once but stayed present throughout their decision journey. ‍
3. Expectation setting content: Creative explained vetting steps, shift patterns and salaries up front. This reduced later stage withdrawals and protected assessment centre capacity, a hidden cost in previous campaigns.

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Results

The numbers tell the story, but a little context helps. Over a twelve-week window Gaia ran the attraction engine, Mitie ran its in-house assessment and vetting process, and finance tracked every pound.

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Headline savings and speed

What these savings meant in practice

By filling the entire cohort without agencies, Mitie eliminated all placement fees and kept every recruitment pound inside the contract. Faster hiring also removed the need for overtime backfill, delivering an additional and ongoing operational saving.

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Impact for hiring managers

Lower costs did not come at the expense of quality. Assessment pass rate held steady at 40% and attendance improved to 82%, so recruiters spent time with engaged candidates rather than chasing no shows.

The continuous flow of calibrated applicants meant assessment centres ran at full capacity without extra spend.

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What it means for finance and procurement

The programme provided a repeatable template for controlled spending:

• Predictable unit cost that can be forecast for future MoJ lots and other public sector bids.
  

• Live dashboard visibility for finance to track media burn and cost per hire in real time.
• Contract compliance with MoJ value for money requirements, evidenced by third party advertising data and hire audit trails.

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What is next

Having proven a £240 cost per hire model, Mitie and Gaia are now scaling the same approach to justice escort contracts and secure logistics roles. The target is to maintain or improve the unit cost while localising campaigns for new geographies.