Individual layer
Named, verified professionals with current title, employer, remit, tenure, reporting line, location, career history and, where obtainable, compensation and mobility indicators.
Talent Mapping & Talent Intelligence · UK & USA
Talent Mapping Services That Show You Who Is Out There — Before You Hire
Audentia Research is an independent talent mapping company working with organisations across the United Kingdom and the United States. Our talent mapping consultants research entire markets — competitor by competitor, function by function — and hand you a verified, decision-ready picture of the talent landscape you are hiring into.
Quick answer
Talent mapping is a structured research process that identifies, profiles and analyses every credible person who could fill a defined role or function within a defined market — before a vacancy is opened. Rather than reacting to whoever applies, an organisation receives a verified map of the available talent pool: who they are, which competitors employ them, what they are responsible for, how they are compensated, how long they have been in seat and how reachable they are. Audentia Research delivers that map as an independent, research-only service — we produce the intelligence, and you decide what to do with it.
100%Independent research — we are not paid on placements
10–20Working days for a typical single-function talent map
150–400Verified profiles in a standard market-wide map
UK · USPrimary coverage, with EMEA and APAC extensions
Service parameters vary by scope, seniority and geography. Figures above describe typical engagements and are confirmed in writing before work begins.
01 · Definition
What talent mapping is
Talent mapping is market research applied to people. It answers a question that job adverts and applicant tracking systems cannot: who exists in this market, and what would it take to hire them?
A talent map is a systematic, evidence-based inventory of the professionals capable of performing a specific role within a specific market. It is built by primary and secondary research rather than by advertising, and it covers the whole addressable population — including the large majority of qualified people who are not actively looking for a new job and will therefore never appear in an inbound applicant pool.
The scope of a map is defined before research begins. A scope is usually a combination of four boundaries:
- Role or function — for example Chief Financial Officer, VP of Engineering, Head of Regulatory Affairs, or an entire commercial layer.
- Sector and comparator set — the named competitors, adjacent industries and talent-source organisations that count as relevant.
- Geography — a city, a region, a national market such as the UK or the USA, or a defined cross-border footprint.
- Level and profile criteria — seniority band, scale of responsibility, technical domain, regulatory exposure, language, and any diversity dimensions the organisation is tracking.
Within those boundaries, researchers identify every individual who meets the criteria, verify what is publicly and professionally knowable about them, and structure the findings so that patterns become visible — where the depth sits, where the market is thin, which organisations behave as net exporters of talent, and where compensation has moved.
For a plain-English primer on the discipline itself, see our explainer: what is talent mapping?
What talent mapping is not
It is not a candidate list scraped from a professional network, and it is not a shortlist. A talent map does not assume anyone is available, does not approach people on your behalf unless you specifically commission that step, and does not exist to justify a placement fee. It is research: a defensible view of a market, produced to a documented method, that remains useful whether or not you hire this quarter.
The three layers of a talent map
Organisational layer
How competitor teams are actually structured — headcount, layers, span of control, where functions sit, which businesses are growing and which are shedding people.
Market layer
The aggregate picture: talent density by location, pay benchmarks, attrition and movement patterns, scarcity signals, and the realistic difficulty of hiring at your target level.
02 · The firm
What Audentia Research does
Audentia Research is a specialist talent intelligence consultancy and talent mapping company. We conduct the research; our clients own the decision. That separation is deliberate and it is the reason the work is trusted.
Talent mapping services
Full-market maps of a role, function or leadership layer across a defined competitor set and geography — the core of what we do, and the foundation every other service is built on.
Competitor talent mapping
Organisation-by-organisation breakdowns of named competitors: who sits where, how teams are built, which capabilities they have invested in, and where their bench is exposed.
Executive & leadership talent mapping
Board, C-suite and senior functional mapping for succession planning, non-executive appointments and confidential leadership replacement — delivered discreetly and without market noise. Pairs with our executive search practice.
Talent intelligence services
Analysis layered on top of the raw map: pay benchmarking, org design comparisons, diversity representation analysis, attrition modelling and location strategy. See talent intelligence.
Talent pipelining services
Maps maintained over time rather than delivered once — refreshed quarterly, with movement alerts, so a pipeline exists before the role does. See talent pipelining.
Talent research services on demand
Scoped research projects for internal talent acquisition teams: name generation, org charting, market sizing and confidential approach research delivered as an extension of your team.
Our operating principle: research first, opinion second, no placement fee
Because Audentia is not compensated on hires, there is no incentive to inflate a market, over-state availability, or steer you toward a particular candidate. Where a market is thin, we say so. Where your specification is unhireable at the salary offered, we show you the evidence. That honesty is the product.
03 · Clients
Who Audentia serves
We work with organisations that treat hiring as a strategic decision rather than an administrative one — and with the teams inside them who are accountable for that decision.
Talent acquisition & HR leadership
Heads of Talent, TA Directors and CHROs who need market evidence to defend a hiring plan, set realistic timelines, or make the case for a salary band to a finance committee.
Executive & board committees
Chairs, NEDs, RemCo and NomCo members conducting succession reviews, benchmarking incumbents against the external market, or preparing for a confidential leadership change.
Private equity & investors
Deal and portfolio teams assessing management strength pre-acquisition, planning 100-day leadership changes, or building bench strength across a portfolio.
Scale-ups entering new markets
Founders and COOs opening a UK or US office who need to know whether the capability they require actually exists in the city they have chosen — before signing a lease.
In-house recruitment teams
Internal recruiters who want research capacity without adding headcount: name generation, org charts and pipelines that feed directly into their own outreach.
Search firms & consultancies
Executive search and advisory firms outsourcing confidential market research on a white-label basis, under strict client anonymity.
Sectors we map most often
- Technology & SaaS
- Financial services
- Insurance
- Private equity & portfolio
- Life sciences & pharma
- Medical devices
- Industrial & manufacturing
- Energy & renewables
- Professional services
- Consumer & retail
- Logistics & supply chain
- Public sector & not-for-profit
See the full list of sectors we cover.
Functions and levels
- Board & NED
- C-suite
- Finance
- Technology & engineering
- Data & AI
- Product
- Commercial & sales
- Marketing
- Operations
- Supply chain
- Legal & compliance
- Risk
- Regulatory affairs
- People & HR
- Transformation
04 · Method
How Audentia's talent mapping process works
Every engagement follows the same seven-stage method. It is documented, repeatable and auditable — so the map you receive can be defended in a board paper, and refreshed identically twelve months later.
1
Define the question, not just the role
We start with a scoping session with the hiring sponsor and the talent lead. We agree the exact role definition, the comparator organisations that count, the geography, the seniority band, the must-have and nice-to-have criteria, any organisations that are off-limits, and — critically — the decision the research is meant to inform. Everything is written into a scope document that both parties sign off.
2
Build the target universe
We construct the list of organisations to be researched: direct competitors, adjacent sectors that produce transferable capability, upstream and downstream players, and non-obvious talent sources. This universe is returned to you for approval before any profiling begins, because getting the universe wrong is the single most common failure in market mapping recruitment work.
3
Identify and profile every relevant individual
Researchers work organisation by organisation, building out structures and identifying named individuals against the agreed criteria. We use professional networks, company disclosures, regulatory registers, patent and publication records, conference and industry-body sources, and direct telephone research where appropriate. Nothing enters the map on the strength of a single unverified source.
4
Verify, cross-check and remove noise
Each profile is validated against at least two independent sources. Stale titles, duplicate records, people who have moved, and profiles that do not truly meet the criteria are stripped out. The difference between a talent map and a list is almost entirely made here.
5
Turn data into intelligence
We analyse the verified population for the patterns that change decisions: where talent is concentrated geographically, which organisations lose people fastest, typical tenure before a move, the compensation range that actually clears the market, representation and diversity of the pool, and the realistic size of the genuinely addressable segment.
6
Deliver the report and walk you through it
You receive a written report, a structured data file and — where commissioned — visual org charts. We then present the findings live to your stakeholders, take questions, and record the decisions that follow. The debrief is where the work becomes usable.
7
Maintain the map, or activate it
Markets move. Maps can be refreshed quarterly or half-yearly with movement tracking, so your talent pipelining stays current. Where you want the pool warmed rather than just documented, we can run confidential, unbranded market-interest research and hand you a calibrated view of who would genuinely engage — still without acting as your recruiter.
Research ethics and data protection
All research is conducted lawfully and transparently, using professional and publicly available sources. Personal data in every map is processed on a legitimate-interest basis, held to documented UK GDPR and — where the engagement touches the United States — applicable state privacy standards, with defined retention periods and a documented route for any individual to request removal. We do not use deception to obtain information, and we do not misrepresent who we are.
05 · Intelligence
What information talent mapping provides
A finished map answers four categories of question — about people, about competitor organisations, about the market, and about your own position within it.
| Category | What is captured | The decision it informs |
|---|---|---|
| Individual profile | Name, current title, employer, location, reporting line, direct reports, remit and scale of responsibility, time in role, total tenure, career path, education and professional qualifications. | Whether a genuinely qualified pool exists at your level, and who belongs on a longlist. |
| Compensation | Base salary ranges, bonus structures, equity and LTIP practice by band and by employer, benefits norms, and how packages differ between the UK and the US for the same role. | Whether your offer clears the market, and what the true cost of hire will be. |
| Organisational structure | Team size and shape at each competitor, layers between the role and the CEO, span of control, centralised versus embedded functions, recent restructures and hiring freezes. | How to design the role so it is attractive and comparable to what the market offers. |
| Availability & mobility | Time-in-seat distribution, typical tenure before moving, recent movers, relocation willingness, notice periods, visa and work-authorisation considerations, non-compete exposure. | How long a hire will realistically take, and which segment of the pool is actually reachable. |
| Geographic distribution | Where the population clusters by city and region, hybrid and remote norms, secondary talent hubs, and the depth available within a commutable radius of each of your sites. | Where to locate a team, open an office, or accept remote working. |
| Diversity representation | Aggregate representation across the mapped population, benchmarked against the wider sector, with an assessment of where a more representative pool exists. | Whether a diverse slate is achievable and where to widen the search to achieve one. |
| Competitive position | How your employer brand, structure and pay compare with the comparator set; which organisations you consistently lose people to and win people from. | What must change internally before external hiring can succeed. |
| Market dynamics | Talent scarcity signals, growth and contraction among competitors, emerging skill clusters, regulatory or funding shifts affecting supply. | Whether to hire now, build internally, or wait. |
06–08 · Clarifications
How talent mapping differs from adjacent services
Talent mapping, recruitment, executive search and market mapping are routinely confused — often by suppliers who benefit from the confusion. Here is the honest distinction.
Talent mapping vs recruitment
Recruitment is a transaction that begins when a vacancy opens and ends when someone signs. Talent mapping is research that exists independently of any vacancy. Recruitment answers "who can we hire for this open role, now?" Talent mapping answers "who exists in this market, what would they cost, and how hard would any of them be to hire?" One produces a hire; the other produces the knowledge on which hiring decisions — including the decision not to hire externally at all — are made.
| Dimension | Talent mapping | Recruitment |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Strategic planning; can run with no live vacancy | An approved, open vacancy |
| Output | A research report and dataset covering the whole market | A shortlist of interested, screened applicants |
| Population covered | Everyone who meets the criteria, active or passive | Those who apply or respond to approach |
| Candidate contact | None by default; research only | Central to the service |
| Commercial model | Fixed project fee for research | Contingent or retained fee on placement |
| Incentive | Accuracy — the fee does not depend on a hire | Filling the role |
| Shelf life | 12–24 months as a planning asset, refreshable | Ends when the role is filled |
| Answers "should we hire at all?" | Yes | No — assumes the hire is happening |
Talent mapping vs executive search
Executive search is the retained, end-to-end process of filling one senior appointment: research, approach, assessment, referencing, offer negotiation and onboarding. Research is a phase inside it. Executive talent mapping takes that research phase, removes the placement objective, and delivers it as a standalone deliverable you own. A search firm typically shows you the handful of people it intends to approach; a talent map shows you everyone, including the people a search firm cannot approach because of off-limits agreements with its own clients.
| Dimension | Executive talent mapping | Executive search |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Understand the leadership market | Appoint one named leader |
| Scope | The full qualified population, often 100–400 people | A longlist narrowing to 4–8 finalists |
| Visibility of the market | Complete, including people not approached | Limited to those the firm surfaces |
| Off-limits restrictions | None — we do not place, so no client is protected from research | Yes — client companies are typically off-limits |
| Assessment & interviewing | Not included | Core to the service |
| Who owns the data | The client, permanently | The search firm |
| Typical fee basis | Fixed project fee | Percentage of first-year total compensation |
| Best used for | Succession, benchmarking, planning, pipelining | Executing a specific appointment now |
They work well together
Many clients commission a map first and a search second. The map defines the market and calibrates the specification; the search firm then executes against a brief that is already grounded in evidence — which usually shortens the search and removes the argument about whether the pool exists. Audentia offers both: see executive search.
Talent mapping vs market mapping
The two terms overlap and are often used interchangeably, but the unit of analysis differs. Market mapping — sometimes written as market mapping recruitment or talent market mapping — profiles organisations: which companies operate in a sector, how they are structured, how large their functions are, where they are growing. Talent mapping profiles the people inside those organisations. In practice a rigorous talent map contains a market map, because you cannot identify individuals without first establishing the structures they sit in. The reverse is not true: a market map alone will tell you a competitor has a 40-person data team, but not who leads it, what they earn, or whether they are approachable.
| Dimension | Talent mapping | Market mapping |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of analysis | Individual professionals | Organisations and functions |
| Typical question | "Who could do this job, and what would they cost?" | "Who operates in this space, and how are they built?" |
| Named individuals | Yes — verified and profiled | Usually not, beyond a few leaders |
| Compensation data | Individual and band-level | Aggregate or absent |
| Directly actionable for hiring | Yes | Indirectly — sets the frame |
| Common use | Hiring, succession, pipelining, benchmarking | Entry strategy, competitive analysis, sizing |
| Relationship | A complete talent map includes the market map as its first layer. | |
09 · The wider discipline
How talent intelligence fits into the process
Talent mapping produces the data. Talent intelligence is what happens when that data is interpreted, combined with your internal information, and converted into a recommendation.
A map on its own tells you that 212 people in the UK and 340 in the US meet your criteria. Talent intelligence tells you that only 60 of them are realistically reachable at your budget, that three competitors account for half the credible pool, that the median time in seat is 3.2 years so movement is likely within eighteen months, and that opening in Manchester rather than London would double your effective pool at 78% of the cost.
As a talent intelligence company, Audentia treats the map as an input to four analytical layers:
- Descriptive — what the market looks like right now.
- Comparative — how you sit against the comparator set on structure, pay and brand.
- Diagnostic — why your current hiring approach is or is not working.
- Predictive — where supply is tightening and what that means for the next 12–24 months.
This is the difference between talent research services and talent acquisition intelligence: the first delivers findings, the second delivers a position you can act on. Read more about our talent intelligence services.
10 · Use cases
Why organisations use talent mapping
In almost every case, the trigger is the same: a decision is about to be made with real financial consequences, and nobody in the room can evidence what the external market actually looks like.
To de-risk a critical hire before it is opened
Confirm that the capability exists at the level, location and budget assumed in the plan — before a role is advertised, a budget is committed, or an external fee is incurred against a market that cannot deliver.
To build a succession bench
Board and executive succession requires external options as well as internal ones. Leadership talent mapping gives NomCos a credible, refreshed external slate long before a departure becomes urgent.
To benchmark pay and structure
Survey data lags and generalises. A bespoke map shows what your named competitors actually pay and how they actually organise, which is a far stronger basis for a RemCo paper.
To make a location decision
Before committing to a city for a new office, engineering hub or shared service centre, understand the real depth of talent there, the local pay premium, and the competitive intensity for that skill set.
To enter a new geography
A European business opening in the US — or a US business expanding into the UK — needs to know whether its operating model is staffable in the new market at all, and what has to change if it is not.
To support M&A and investment decisions
Assess the strength and replaceability of a target's management team, identify key-person risk, and pre-plan leadership changes before completion rather than after.
To improve diversity outcomes credibly
Establish what a representative pool genuinely looks like in your market, then widen the sourcing strategy on evidence rather than aspiration — and be able to show the working. See diversity hiring.
To reduce dependence on agency spend
Organisations that own their market data hire more directly. A maintained map plus internal outreach consistently costs less over three years than repeated contingent fees for the same functions.
To defend an unpopular recommendation
Telling a CEO that a role cannot be filled at the approved salary is far easier with 300 verified market data points than with an opinion.
To pipeline ahead of growth
Where a funding round, product launch or contract win will trigger multiple hires, mapping in advance turns a six-month scramble into a sequenced, pre-researched hiring plan.
See how this works in practice: talent mapping case study.
11 · Deliverables
What the client receives
Every Audentia engagement produces a defined set of assets. You own all of them outright, in formats your team can use without us.
Written intelligence report
A 20–45 page report covering methodology, market structure, findings, compensation analysis, risks and clear recommendations — written to be read by an executive committee, not just a recruiter.
Structured profile database
Every verified individual as a row in Excel or CSV, with consistent fields for title, employer, location, tenure, remit, contact-availability status and researcher notes — filterable and ready to import.
Competitor organisation charts
Visual structures for each mapped organisation showing named individuals, reporting lines and team sizes — the fastest way for a hiring manager to understand a competitor's shape.
Compensation benchmark
Base, bonus and long-term incentive ranges by level and by employer, with UK/US differentials and an assessment of where your current package sits against the market.
Market analysis & charts
Talent density by location, tenure distribution, movement patterns between employers, scarcity indicators and diversity representation — visualised for direct use in your own slides.
Live findings presentation
A working session with your stakeholders where we present, defend and stress-test the findings, and agree what happens next. Recorded and shareable internally.
Refresh & movement tracking
Optional quarterly or half-yearly updates showing who has moved, who has been promoted, which organisations have restructured, and how compensation has shifted.
Full data ownership
No platform lock-in, no per-seat licence, no expiry. The research is yours to keep, reuse, and hand to any internal or external partner you choose.
Methodology & source appendix
A documented account of sources, inclusion criteria, verification standards and known limitations — so the work withstands scrutiny from audit, legal or the board.
12 · Impact
How talent mapping supports strategic decisions
Talent mapping earns its place when it changes a decision. These are the decisions our clients most often make differently once the evidence is in front of them.
| Strategic question | What the map supplies | The decision that changes |
|---|---|---|
| Should we build this capability or buy it? | Genuine external supply at the required level, the cost of acquiring it, and the realistic time to hire. | Internal development and promotion where external supply is thin; external hire where it is deep. |
| Where should this team be based? | Talent density, pay premium and competitive intensity by city and region across the UK and US. | Site selection, hub strategy, and how much remote flexibility is genuinely required. |
| Is our compensation competitive? | Named-competitor pay practice by band, including equity and bonus structure. | Salary band revisions and business cases for RemCo, grounded in market evidence. |
| Is our org design normal for this sector? | Comparative team shapes, spans of control and reporting lines across the comparator set. | Role design, level of the appointment, and where the role should report. |
| Who succeeds our CEO or CFO? | A live, refreshed external slate alongside the internal bench. | Succession plans that survive an unexpected resignation. |
| Can we enter this market? | Whether the operating model is staffable locally, and at what cost. | Go, no-go, phased entry, or acquisition instead of organic build. |
| Is this acquisition's management team replaceable? | Depth of external alternatives for each key role in the target. | Deal pricing, retention packages and key-person risk mitigation. |
| Can we hire a diverse slate here? | Actual representation in the qualified pool, and where a broader pool exists. | Sourcing strategy widened on evidence, with defensible targets. |
| How much should we spend on hiring? | Cost and difficulty per role across the plan. | Budget allocated to the roles that are genuinely hard, not spread evenly. |
13 · Coverage
Why Audentia is relevant to the UK and US markets
The United Kingdom and the United States are the two markets our clients most often need mapped — frequently at the same time, and almost always for different reasons.
Talent mapping services in the UK
The UK market is dense but geographically concentrated, and the gap between London and the regional hubs is often the single most valuable finding in a map.
- Coverage across London, the South East, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast and Cardiff.
- Fluency in UK-specific structures: PLC and AIM governance, FCA and PRA regulated roles, SMCR-designated functions, NHS and public-sector frameworks.
- UK GDPR-compliant handling of all personal data, with documented lawful basis and retention.
- Pay analysis that reflects UK reality — modest bonus norms, limited equity outside high-growth technology, and the London weighting that distorts national comparisons.
Talent mapping services in the USA
The US market is larger, more fragmented and far more variable by state — which makes an unmapped hiring plan considerably riskier.
- Coverage across New York, Boston, the Bay Area, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and Research Triangle.
- Awareness of state-level variation: pay-transparency legislation, non-compete enforceability differences, and at-will employment norms.
- Compensation analysis structured the way US candidates evaluate offers — base, target bonus, equity value and vesting, not base alone.
- Practical handling of work authorisation, relocation and multi-site remote structures within a single map.
Transatlantic mapping in a single engagement
Many of our clients operate on both sides of the Atlantic — a UK-headquartered business scaling into North America, or a US business establishing a European base in London. A combined UK/US map applies one consistent methodology and one comparable dataset to both markets, so a genuine like-for-like comparison is possible on pay, structure, supply depth and time-to-hire. That comparison is impossible when two local suppliers deliver two incompatible reports.
Engagement
Ways to work with Audentia
Three standard models, all priced as fixed project fees agreed before work starts.
Single-role talent map
One role, one defined comparator set, one geography. The usual starting point for a critical or first-time appointment.
- Typical delivery: 10–15 working days
- Report, dataset and findings session
- Best for: de-risking a specific hire
Function or leadership-layer map
An entire function or management tier across a market — the most common commission, and the one that supports the widest range of decisions.
- Typical delivery: 15–25 working days
- Adds org charts and compensation benchmarking
- Best for: succession, org design, pay strategy
Retained talent intelligence partnership
Continuous mapping across multiple functions with scheduled refreshes and movement alerts, operating as an embedded research function.
- Quarterly or half-yearly refresh cycles
- Ad-hoc research requests included
- Best for: sustained growth and pipelining
Answers
Frequently asked questions about talent mapping
What is talent mapping?
Talent mapping is a structured research process that identifies and profiles every professional capable of performing a defined role within a defined market, before a vacancy is opened. It produces a verified inventory of named individuals, the organisations they work for, their responsibilities, tenure, compensation and availability, together with analysis of what the market means for your hiring plan.
How does talent mapping work?
It works in seven stages: scoping the question and criteria; defining the universe of organisations to research; identifying and profiling individuals through primary and secondary research; verifying every profile against multiple independent sources; analysing the population for patterns in supply, pay and movement; delivering a report, dataset and live debrief; and optionally refreshing the map over time. A typical single-function map takes 10 to 20 working days.
How is talent mapping different from recruitment?
Recruitment is triggered by an open vacancy and ends with a placement, and the supplier is usually paid only if someone is hired. Talent mapping is research that can run with no vacancy at all, covers the entire qualified market rather than only those who apply, involves no candidate approach by default, and is paid as a fixed research fee. Because the fee does not depend on a hire, the incentive is accuracy rather than placement.
Is talent mapping the same as market mapping?
No, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Market mapping profiles organisations — who operates in a sector and how they are structured. Talent mapping profiles the individuals inside those organisations, with names, remits, tenure and compensation. A thorough talent map contains a market map as its first layer, but a market map on its own cannot tell you who to hire or what they would cost.
Do you contact the people in the map?
Not by default. Standard talent mapping is research only, and no individual is approached about a role. Where a client wants a calibrated read on genuine market interest, we can run a separate, clearly scoped and unbranded market-interest exercise. That is always commissioned explicitly and priced separately, and it never involves representing your organisation as a recruiter.
How long does a talent map take?
A single-role map typically takes 10 to 15 working days. A function-wide or leadership-layer map across a larger comparator set usually takes 15 to 25 working days. Multi-geography transatlantic engagements are longer. Timelines are confirmed in the scope document before work begins, and we do not start research until the universe of organisations has been approved.
How much does talent mapping cost?
Talent mapping is priced as a fixed project fee based on the number of roles, the size of the comparator set, the geographies covered and the depth of analysis required — never as a percentage of salary. Because the fee is fixed and unrelated to whether a hire occurs, the cost is known upfront and the research remains valuable even if the role is never filled externally.
Who owns the data in the finished map?
You do, permanently and outright. Deliverables are supplied in standard formats — report documents, Excel or CSV datasets, and chart files — with no platform, licence or seat restrictions. You are free to reuse the research internally, refresh it yourselves, or share it with a search firm or advisor of your choosing.
Is talent mapping GDPR compliant?
Yes. Research is conducted using professional and publicly available sources, and personal data is processed on a legitimate-interest basis with a documented assessment, defined retention periods and a clear route for any individual to request removal. UK and EU engagements are handled to UK GDPR standards; US engagements additionally respect applicable state privacy legislation. We do not use deception or misrepresentation to obtain information.
Can talent mapping be used for executive hiring?
Yes — executive and leadership talent mapping is one of our most common commissions. It is used for succession planning, board and C-suite benchmarking, confidential leadership replacement, and to calibrate a specification before an executive search is launched. Because we do not place candidates, no organisation is off-limits to our research, so an executive map is usually broader than the view a retained search firm can provide.
Do you cover both the UK and the USA?
Yes. The UK and USA are our primary markets, and we regularly deliver combined transatlantic maps under a single methodology so the two markets can be compared like for like on supply depth, compensation, structure and time to hire. We also extend into wider EMEA and APAC markets where a client's footprint requires it.
How often should a talent map be refreshed?
A map remains a useful planning asset for roughly 12 to 24 months, but individual data decays faster: in most senior markets, 15 to 25 percent of profiles change materially within a year. Clients using a map for active pipelining typically refresh quarterly or half-yearly; clients using it for a one-off decision usually do not refresh at all.
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Next step
Find out what your market actually looks like
Tell us the role, the competitors that matter and the geography. We will come back with a defined scope, a fixed fee and a delivery date — usually within two working days, and always before any commitment.
Confidential by default. Scoping conversations are covered by mutual NDA on request, and no research begins until scope and fee are agreed in writing.